Riverbanks: How to Achieve a Coexistence of Biodiversity, Recreation and Flood Retention”
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Study “Riverbanks: how to achieve a coexistence of biodiversity, recreation and flood retention” Project Partner: Kuldīga District Municipality 2020 Content Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 6 1 Use of rivers and riverbanks in the historic urban environment .............................. 8 1.1 Situation characteristics, problems and solutions .................................................... 9 Jelgava ...................................................................................................................... 9 Valmiera ................................................................................................................. 12 1.2 Proposals for the transfer of experience ................................................................. 25 2 The river Venta and the riverbanks ........................................................................ 28 Cultural heritage ..................................................................................................... 29 Cultural monuments ............................................................................................... 29 UNESCO ................................................................................................................ 29 2.2 Historical use of rivers and riverbanks and their impact on the urban environment32 Changes in the land use of the Venta riverbank in the historical perspective ........ 32 Historical uses of the river ..................................................................................... 37 2.3 Assessment to renewal of historical uses ............................................................... 59 2.4 Specially protected nature areas ............................................................................. 60 Nature reserve “Ventas ieleja” ............................................................................... 61 Protected trees - noble trees ................................................................................... 64 Geological and geomorphological nature monument “Venta fall” ........................ 64 3 Landscape and ecological assessment of the river Venta and it’s riverbanks ........ 65 3.1 Geological and geomorphological structure, assessment of nowadays geological processes ............................................................................................................................ 65 3.1.1. Geological structure .............................................................................................. 66 3.1.2. Geomorphological conditions ............................................................................... 75 3.1.3. Hydrogeological conditions .................................................................................. 79 3.1.4. Engineering geological characteristics .................................................................. 80 3.1.4. Exogenous geological processes ........................................................................... 81 3.2 Hydrological characteristics of the river ................................................................ 86 3.2.1. River bed ............................................................................................................... 86 3.2.2. Water level, flow rate and run-off ......................................................................... 86 3.2.3. Ice cover changes .................................................................................................. 89 3.3 Stormwater drainage system in Kuldīga ................................................................ 94 Climate change and increased flood risk ............................................................... 95 2 Principles for sustainable stormwater management (SUDS) ................................. 97 Water flow direction model for Kuldīga ................................................................ 99 Sewage outlets ...................................................................................................... 100 3.4 Ecological status of the Venta river ..................................................................... 102 3.4.1. Ecological quality, including coverage of aquatic plants.................................... 102 3.4.2. Physicochemical analysis of water...................................................................... 105 3.4.3. Water quality in protected areas .......................................................................... 107 3.4.4. Impacts and hazards ............................................................................................ 108 3.5 Ecosystems, nature values and their management ............................................... 113 3.5.1. Ecosystems, ecosystem services ......................................................................... 113 3.5.2. Habitats of European Union importance ............................................................. 118 3.5.3. Localities of specially protected species ............................................................. 147 3.6 The landscape of the river Venta and the riverbanks ........................................... 158 3.6.1. Major landscape forming elements ...................................................................... 160 3.6.2. Changes in the landscape ..................................................................................... 163 3.6.3. Analysis of visual perception of spatial composition .......................................... 165 4 Proposals for the development of the Venta river and its riverbanks .................. 177 4.1 Management of the freshwater, grassland and forest habitats ............................. 177 Reduction of the river coverage of aquatic plants, recultivation of stream, reduction of anthropogenic load and riverbed cleaning ....................................................................... 183 Grassland habitats maintainance .......................................................................... 186 Maintainance of the forest habitats ...................................................................... 193 Protection and management of sites of specially protected and rare plant species194 Restriction of invasive species ............................................................................. 196 4.2 Management of stormwater drainage systems ..................................................... 198 4.3 Cleaning of riverbank vegetation, exposing the landscape and creating riverbank silhouettes ........................................................................................................................ 199 4.4 Infrastructure development of Venta valley riverbanks ....................................... 202 4.5 Further research .................................................................................................... 206 5 Recommendations for study on the development of rivers and riverbanks in the urban environment ........................................................................................................... 211 6 The list of used literature...................................................................................... 216 Attachments ..................................................................................................................... 220 Annex 1 State cultural monuments in the city of Kuldīga ............................................... 220 Annex 2 Experience of Latvian cities in project implementation .................................... 225 3 Annex 3 Time schedule fot the habitats restoration measures ......................................... 232 Annex 4 Time schedule for habitat maintenance measures ............................................. 234 4 The list of maps Map 1 “Comparison of historical maps.” Map 2 “Demonstration sites of historical uses of Venta river. Recommendations” Map 3 “Specially protected nature areas” Map 4 “Pre-Quaternary geological map and sections” Map 5 “Quaternary geological map and section” Map 6 “Geomorphological map and sections of Venta Valley” Map 7 “Antropogenic impact” Map 8 “Nature values” Map 9 “Implementation of management measures, survey results 2019” Map 10 “Significant landscape features” Map 11 “Analysis of visual perception of spatial composition” Map 12 “Habitat restoration measures by habitat types” Map 13 “Habitat maintenance measures by habitat types” Map 14 “Habitat restoration measures” Map 15 “Habitat maintenance measures” Map 16 “Recommendations for the exposure and use of the Venta Valley landscape” 5 Introduction The study is developed by the interregional cooperation program INTERREG EUROPE 2014- 2020 within the project “UrbanLinks 2 Landscape - UL2L” in 2019-2020. It is the project’s main objective to increase the knowledge base and skills and to deliver tools that allow the evaluation of urban gardening, health care and selected ecosystem services compared to other uses of open spaces and consequently the enhancement of policies that support action plans and measures to use the limited natural capital sustainably. The project partners improve their regional development programmes and policy documents on the basis of the transfer of good practices from other regions. The project activities are carried out together by 6 countries of the European Union (7 partners in total). The partnership jointly identified main challenges in Kuldīga, which are of overall importance for the project: − preparataion of a