Ybbs

The Mostviertel Ybbs catchment provides the unique opportunity to study the impacts of land use and climate change (warming, heat waves, and extreme hydrological events) on tributaries of the Upper Danube along a gradient from almost pristine to heavily impacted headwater streams. The research at this site focuses on the resistance, resilience, and adaptation of ecosystem functioning and the stream biota. Amongst others, we investigate the response of benthic and hyporheic biogeochemical and microbial processes, biotic interactions, and the aquatic biodiversity to multiple stressors, such as changes in the hydrology and the sediment regime, heat waves, the exposition to nutrients, emerging pollutants, microplastics, and fecal bacteria, etc.