Are ditches different than streams? How?

The sustainable management of riparian forest cover along Sweden’s small waterways is instrumental to the protection of water quality and biodiversity while also creating value to society. The country has some 1 million km of small waterways - the smallest of which we do not know much about their ecology and contribution to natural values. Furthermore, to what extent does their origin matter? Does it matter if they are a ditch that has been left to evolve into a stream or a stream that has been straightened to increase drainage?

Project options:

1. Biodiversity of vegetation or instream macroinvertebrates or terrestrial insects along small streams and ditches (already collected data)

2. Evaluation of deadwood diversity (using already collected data)

3. If we protect or create well managed riparian buffers around them, how much more connected would protected areas or old forest be? (GIS mapping)

More??? Do you have something that interests you? Contact: eliza.hasselquist@slu.se