This talk will highlight the main findings of my PhD thesis, where I studied spatial self-organization of river vegetation by means of mathematical modelling, field and flume experiments. In particular, I focused on the interaction between vegetation growth and water flow redistribution, and the effects on river flows and biodiversity.

My research indicates that in-stream vegetation buffers river ecosystems against hydrological changes, regulating flow velocities and water levels despite changing discharge. At the same time, vegetation supports the river's biodiversity: by maintaining habitat diversity, it creates conditions that are favourable for other species. These findings are in contrast with current river management practices that remove vegetation because it is perceived to increase the risk of river flooding. As global climate change is expected to increase hydrological extremes, these results suggest that plant-driven self-organization allows stream ecosystems to adapt to changing conditions, maintaining suitable hydrodynamic conditions to support biodiversity.

Loreta Cornacchia, postdoc at EDS, is working on remote sensing and modelling of intertidal systems to understand their resilience (with Tom Ysebaert). Loreta completed her PhD at NIOZ in 2018, where she focused on self-organization of river vegetation. Before starting her postdoc at NIOZ, she was a postdoc at CNRS (Lyon) and studied biomechanics and flow modification by flexible vegetation.

Loreta Cornacchia, Emergent properties of bio-physical self-organization in vegetated streams