Management and Conservation of Inland Waters

Code: BIO08106M

6 ECTS

Duration: 15 weeks/162 hours

Scientific Area: Biology

Teaching languages: Portuguese

Languages of tutoring support: Portuguese

Sustainable Development Goals

4. Educação de qualidade - Assegurar a educação inclusiva, e equitativa e de qualidade, e promover oportunidades de aprendizagem ao longo da vida para todos.

Learning Goals

To know the abiotic and biotic compartments of freshwater ecosystems, to understand its interactions, and functioning. To know the types of perturbations resulting from human interference and how to mitigate these, and restore and rehabilitate ecosystems and habitats. To know how to monitor ecological quality and ecosystem health.

Part I- Abiotic freshwater scenarios. Major and minor components, water quality. Thermal stratification. Flora and fauna of the freshwater environment. Organic matter and its cycling. Typology and ecology of aquatic communities in rivers and lakes, temporal and trophic variability. Ecology of freshwater fishes.
Part II- Water quality and biotic integrity of freshwater ecosystems. Eutrophication and its control in rivers and reservoirs. Regulated rivers, ecology and management. Minimal flow requirements. Fish passes and fish movements. Ecology and management of riparian woodlands. Ecology and control of invasive species. Mining and substrate extraction. Habitat restoration in mining areas. Ecology of urban rivers. Restoration of aquatic systems, rivers and reservoirs.

Teaching Methods

The discipline evaluation is continuous, and primarily done through two theoretical tests (60% in total, of the final grade). Further, three to four reports are done each year on application themes, for example, the calculation of an ecological flow regime, the analysis of physical-chemical characteristics of water samples, the definition of habitat use curves for fish, the application of an index of ecological quality and an index of riparian quality, the sampling of a reach with electrofishing. For these applied reports, students work in groups of 2-3.
If the final grade is higher than 9,5 then the student does not need to go to the exam. However for the other students, the exam has two calls and is done after the period.