Guidance Freshwater habitats

Index section Freshwater habitats

• Description Freshwater habitats
• "Nature quality" in brooks, ditches and pools
• Subsection: Freshwater quality
• Subsection: Freshwater dynamics
• Subsection: Freshwater transitions
• Subsection: Freshwater migration

Introduction

There is a wide range of freshwater habitats in the Netherlands: flowing or stagnant, eutrophic or oligotrophic, deep or shallow. The types of water bodies that occur naturally in the Netherlands include streams and rivers. But many of the freshwater habitats are man-made: ditches, canals, and the IJsselmeer and its marginal lakes.

Often these man-made canals and rivers the dikes and facings result in an unnaturally abrupt transition from water to land. Many of these man-made waters have a water dept of only a few meters offering suitable habitats for water plants and mutually for other organism like insects, fishes and birds. On the other hand, the abrupt transitions from water to land do not form suitable habitats for these species.

In the natural situation there is usually a gradual transition from fresh water to land. Waters in a natural state are surrounded by a zone of swamps, flooding areas, swamps and woodlands, backwaters and wetlands which form a habitat for a wide variety of plant and animal species. However, the gradual transitions of these natural waters have been replaced by sharp transitions also.

Relevant information outside of the Environmental Data Compendium

• More information about biological monitoring in freshwaters can be found at (only in Dutch): www.waterstat.nl