Relationship between land-use and water quality in small alpine streams

Over the last several years the international scientific community has become increasingly interested in mountain lotic ecosystems. Actually, mountain fresh water ecosystems belong to the least disturbed systems, but are still threatened by human impact just as all others. Land-use and biological water quality of lotic ecosystems are strongly interrelated. The adjoining land-cover and the type of land-use influence the composition and structure of biological communities and, as a result, the biological water quality as well.

Project description

This study is aimed at investigating the influence of land-use on the ecological water quality.
Bethic macroinvertebrate communities of four small streams were analyzed in the upper Passeier-Valley (South Tyrol, Italy) to detect their composition and relation to the abiotic conditions. Moreover, information on land-use and land-cover was collected. The land-use parameters (settlements and roads, agriculture, forest, grassland, bare ground) were edited by means of GIS technology on the basis of a standardized dataset. The hydrological-topographical parameters were calculated on the basis of a digital elevation model for the watersheds. The resulting data were interrelated by means of statistical procedures (Correlation Analysis, Canonical Correspondence Analysis) and evaluated.

Duration: 2002-2006

Project partners and financing

• Biological Laboratory of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano (Laboratorio biologico, Biologisches Labor)

Contact

 Roberta Bottarin
 eMail