River Sélune: Ecology and management of riverside areas and agricultural landscapes

2015-2018 Coordinators: BAGAP research unit BAGAP Contact: Claudine Thenail, Audrey Alignier BAGAP Research Area: Biodiversity conservation in rural and urban areas, Biodiversity and Biological regulation, Farm technical management, Landscape modeling and analysis Keywords: riverside valley landscape, agricultural changes, biodiversity, ecological restoration, spontaneous vegetation, pollinators, dam removal

Research

Context and Objectives

The SERIPAGE Project is part of a long-term interdisciplinary monitoring program on the consequences of two dam removals on the Sélune River (Normandy, France). This scientific program is divided into four topics: Landscape, humans and usage / Agricultural and riparian landscape (SERIPAGE Project) / River dynamics / Aquatic ecological communities

The applied issue of the SERIPAGE project is to produce methods and indicators to help managers and locals actors to understand how landscape, agriculture, riverside management and spontaneous biodiversity (mainly vegetation, also pollinator insects) are interacting and changing. In the context of the Sélune valley development project, the objective is to describe and understand the current state and some past evolutions of the Sélune Valley in terms of agriculture, biodiversity and landscape heterogeneity.

Methodology

The project gathers researchers and engineers with expertise on landscape agroecology/agronomy (BAGAP research unit), ecological restoration of riverside vegetation (ESE research unit) and geography of riverscape changes (LETG-Rennes research unit).

The study relies on the sampling of sites representative of the riverside areas and the landscapes alongside the river Sélune. Data is collected from remote sensing images and other geomatics sources, field observations and interviews of farmers. At the end of the project, workshops will be organised with local actors to discuss about the results and the follow-up of the project.

Results (2017)

Alongside the river, we observed significant differences in landscape structure, biodiversity (vegetation richness and composition) and agricultural management (field and field margin management) along the river Sélune. In the between-dams area (area of lakes in discharge), we also observed differences of recolonisation of banks and sediments by the vegetation.

From river to plateaux, we measured differences between valley bottoms and hillsides (plateaux), in terms of fine scale landscape structures / grassland management / grassland vegetation. We also measured differences of recolonisation of sediments by the vegetation within the between-dam area according to the distance from the new stream corridor. The vegetation which colonized sediments at the mouths of several tributary streams is composed of more weeds and ruderal species than the vegetation elsewhere on sediments.

Productions

Castay L, Prampart A, Alignier A &Thenail C. (2017)."Projet SERIPAGE- Sélune : Ecologie et gestion des zones rivulaires, ripariennes et des paysages agricoles". Plaquette de restitution aux agriculteurs des résultats préliminaires sur l'analyse des pratiques de gestion et de la flore des prairies. 4 p. Plaquette de restitution aux agriculteurs.

Laslier M., Ba A., Hubert-Moy L.&Dufour S. (2017). Comparison of leaf-on and leaf-off ALS data for mapping riparian tree species. SPIE conference Varsaw 10-14 September 2017. Communication orale.

Laslier M., Muller I., Bernez I, Hubert-Moy L.& Dufour S. (2017). Early successional vegetation dynamics of alluvial deposits following dam removal.IAVS conference. Palerme 20-24 June 2017. Communication orale.

Prampart A, Delisle M, Lecoeur D. & Bernez I. (2017). Influence des paysages agricoles à différentes échelles, sur les communautés végétales des berges de ruisseaux de tête de bassin versant. ECOVEG 13, Québec, 11-12-13 septembre 2017. Communication orale.

Pronost M., Oury Y., Ravot C. & Bernez I. (2018). Suivi de la recolonisation végétale spontanée des berges remaniées de la Sélune (Normandie, France) avant l’arasement de deux grands barrages : élaboration d’un protocole pour la mise en place de l’observatoire ORSER. REVER 9, Arles, 5-6 avril 2018. Poster.

Ravot C., Laslier M., Waymel J., Muller I., Hubert-Moy L., Dufour S. & Bernez I. (2018). Dynamiques végétales jeunes sur les vases exondées du lac de Vezins (Manche) avant démantèlement de grands barrages : potentialités d’une restauration écologique passive et conservatoire d’une vallée renaissante. REVER 9, Arles, 5-6 avril 2018. Communication orale.

Ravot C., Laslier M., Muller I., Hubert-Moy L., Dufour S. & Bernez I. (2018) New Sélune River (Normandy) margins following large dam removal: Ecological restoration perspectives considering successional vegetation dynamics of alluvial deposits. I.S. Rivers 2018, Lyon, 4-8 juin 2018. Communication orale.

BAGAP staff involved

• Audrey Alignier: Ecology
• Lily Castay: Agronomy
• Julien Deniau: Geomatics
• Elven Lanoë: Ecology
• David Leroy: Ecology
• Charlotte Ravot: Ecology (work supervised by Ivan Bernez, ESE research unit)
• Claudine Thenail: Agronomy
• Alejandro Zermeno-Rodriguez: Geomatics (work supervised by Simon Dufour, LETG-Rennes research unit)

Partners

Local research partners

• Project members: ESE research unit (Ivan Bernez and colleagues), LETG-Rennes research unit (Simon Dufour and colleagues)
• Research coordination team: ESE research unit (Jean-Luc Baglinière, Jean-Marc Roussel, Stéphane Fraisse)

Local stakeholders partners: river technicians, farmers, local authorities, consultative bodies, decentralised state services, chamber of agriculture, botanical conservatory.

Funding

Seine-Normandy Water Agency

© INRA

© Marianne Laslier (UMR LETG)

© INRA