Riparian Forestry Project (RipFor): the ecological part on the River Fersina (Trentino, Italy)

SUMMARY - Riparian Forestry Project (RipFor): the ecological part on the River Fersina (Trentino, Italy) - TheRipFor (Hydraulic, Sedimentological and Ecological Problems of Multifunctional Riparian Forest Management) is anEuropean project concerned with the optimisation of riparian forest management, with special respect to hydraulic andecological problems occurring in floodplains. Field and laboratory work was carried out in collaboration with FreieUniversitat Berlin, Universitat Karlsruhe, Universitat fur Bodenkultur of Wien and Universita degli Studi of Trento(Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile ed Ambientale). Each partner worked on a different aspect of the project (hydraulic,sedimentological or ecological studies). The results will be combined with existing experience to introduce innovations,improvement and optimisation. The final deliverable of the project will be guidelines to improve riparian forest mana-gement. Our ecological field studies were carried out in order to map the ecological functionality of streams in all itsaspects, and for understanding more particular problems such as organic material retention and processing and asmacroinvertebrate community. This work was concentrated on the Fersina stream (Trento, NE Italy).RIASSUNTO -