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The role of vegetation and litter in the nitrogen dynamics of riparian buffer zones in Europe
Mariet M. Hefting,Jean-Christophe Clément,Piotr Bienkowski,David Dowrick,Claire Guenat,Andrea Butturini,Sorana Topa,Gilles Pinay,Jos T. A. Verhoeven +8 more
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In this article, the importance of plant uptake and denitrification in litter for N retention in riparian buffers was investigated, showing that annual nitrogen retention in the vegetation and litter compartment is substantial, making up 13-99% of the total N mitigation.Abstract:
Plant uptake and denitrification are considered to be the most important processes responsible for N retention and mitigation in riparian buffers. In many riparian buffers, however, nutrients taken up by plants remain in the system only temporarily and may be gradually released by mineralization later. Still, plants increase the residence time of nutrients considerably by reducing their mobility. We investigated the importance of plant N uptake and N immobilization in litter for N retention in riparian buffers. Nitrogen uptake in vegetation and N dynamics in litter were measured over a two-year period in a range of forested and herbaceous riparian buffers along a climatic gradient in Europe, receiving different loadings of N-enriched groundwater. Plant production, nitrogen uptake, and N retention were significantly higher in the forested buffer sites compared to the herbaceous buffer sites. However, in herbaceous buffers, periodic harvesting of herbaceous biomass contributed considerably to the N retention. No relationship between lateral N loading and plant productivity or N uptake was observed; this indicated that plant growth was not N-limited. In the winter period, decaying leaf litter had a small but significant role in N retention in a majority of the riparian ecosystems studied. Moreover, no responses to the climatic gradient were found. Generally, we can state that annual N retention in the vegetation and litter compartment is substantial, making up 13–99% of the total N mitigation.read more
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Regional and global concerns over wetlands and water quality
TL;DR: The water purification function of wetlands at the site and catchment scale is discussed and ways in which these disadvantages could be overcome are suggested.
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The Role of Riparian Vegetation in Protecting and Improving Chemical Water Quality in Streams
Michael G. Dosskey,Philippe Vidon,Noel P. Gurwick,Craig J. Allan,Tim P. Duval,Richard Lowrance +5 more
TL;DR: The role of vegetation in protecting streams from nonpoint source pollutants and in improving the quality of degraded stream water has been extensively studied as mentioned in this paper, with a focus on the role of riparian vegetation.
Book ChapterDOI
Interaction of Climate Change and Eutrophication
Erik Jeppesen,Brian Moss,Helen Bennion,Laurence Carvalho,Luc DeMeester,Heidrun Feuchtmayr,Nikolai Friberg,Mark O. Gessner,Mark O. Gessner,Mariet M. Hefting,Torben L. Lauridsen,Lone Liboriussen,Hilmar J. Malmquist,Linda May,Mariana Meerhoff,Mariana Meerhoff,Jón S. Ólafsson,Merel B. Soons,Jos T. A. Verhoeven +18 more
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Indicators of nutrients transport from agricultural catchments under temperate climate: A review
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reviewed the factors of transport from upland source areas to surface water as N and P indicators, and reported on the magnitudes of nutrients transfer and mitigate their environmental impacts using freshwater wetlands and riparian buffers.
Journal ArticleDOI
Purification processes, ecological functions, planning and design of riparian buffer zones in agricultural watersheds
TL;DR: Two international meetings on ecological engineering, with a focus on riparian buffer zones, served as the source for selected papers in this special issue as discussed by the authors, highlighting trends in investigation of the purification processes in buffer zones as well as planning, design and management aspects of riparian buffers regarding the wide spectrum of their ecological functions.
References
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Energy Storage and the Balance of Producers and Decomposers in Ecological Systems
TL;DR: Birch, L. C. Kollros, C. Boggild, O., and J. Keiding as discussed by the authors The linkage map of the house fly, Musca domestic L.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Ecology of Interfaces: Riparian Zones
Robert J. Naiman,Henri Décamps +1 more
TL;DR: Riparian zones possess an unusually diverse array of species and environmental processes as discussed by the authors, related to variable flood regimes, geographically unique channel processes, altitudinal climate shifts, and upland influences on the fluvial corridor.