Morphological assessment
Morphological assessment
Type
Hydromorphological assessment methods
Brief description
Methods for morphological assessment differ from physical habitat assessment methods as they have a broader geomorphological perspective, and give a greater consideration to physical processes (e.g. hydrological and sediment continuity, sediment transport, erosion, channel adjustments) and alterations derived from human pressures. They are generally applied at the reach and catchment scales. They are process-oriented and also generally evaluate the river hydromorphological conditions at a greater temporal scale. We reviewed 23 methods in total (12 for European countries and 11 for non-European countries).
Strengths, limitations and gaps
Morphological assessment methods take into account physical processes at appropriate spatial and temporal scales. The main limitation is linked to the complexity in assessing and understanding physical processes; indeed these methods need to be applied by specialists and the assessment is often limited by data availability (e.g. historical photo and maps, GIS data etc.).
Other relevant information
Summary tables of analyzed physical habitat assessement methods are available here:
- For European countries: File:3 EU.pdf
- For non European countries: File:3 nonEU.pdf
In the table we recorded whether the analyzed method considers or not a specific feature. Three options were considered: presence (tick), absence ( ), and probably assessed (PA), the latter indicating when there is an uncertainty concerning whether the feature is collected and/or when the feature may be indirectly obtained.
Table 1 lists key and analyzed references for methods of phisical habitat assessment.
