Author(s): Lopes, João Manuel da Piedade
Date: 2014
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/6782
Origin: Repositório da UTL
Subject(s): Parque Natural de Sintra-Cascais; action plan; fish assemblages; Mediterranean Rivers; morphologic condition; ecological status
Mestrado em Engenharia Florestal e dos Recursos Naturais - Gestão de Recursos Naturais - Instituto Superior de Agronomia
The Mediterranean rivers being less resilient than other aquatic ecosystems are particularly susceptible to threats of anthropogenic nature, so their need for protection and recovery is higher. This concern is even more pressing in water courses involved by unnatural uses, such as the streams included in the Parque Natural de Sintra-Cascais (PNSC), justifying actions that seek recovery of its ecological status. In this context, firstly, I evaluated habitats and ripícolan zones of these streams, and sampled their fish communities. In a second phase, I developed an integrated index to assess the conservation status of these streams, which includes local and regional variables, and I studied the interaction between environment and fish assemblages. The studied systems are embedded in an area with strong influence of urban and agriculture uses, therefore showed average to high levels of degradation. The fish communities showed some longitudinal zonation and less tolerant species were more abundant in slightly less degraded reaches. Framed both on the principles of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the goals of the development plan for the PNSC, an action plan was developed in order to improve the morphologic condition and integrity of the fish communities of these river systems
