Tracking the effects of dam construction and restoration on side channel biodiversity using macrofossils in river sediment records.

During the last decades, fluvial sediment cores have been used to reconstruct and model pollution trends, especially for the post-1945 period. Ecological changes have been rarely studied in such recent sediment archives due to low organic levels and high hydro-sedimentary dynamics. Here, we address the challenge of reconstructing ecosystem changes along highly anthropized rivers by analysing plant macrofossils (e.

Key factors influencing metal concentrations in sediments along Western European Rivers: A long-term monitoring study (1945-2020).

Since 1945, a large amount of heterogeneous data has been acquired to survey river sediment quality, especially concerning regulatory metals such as Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, and Zn. Large-scale syntheses are critical to assess the effectiveness of public regulations and the resiliency of the river systems. Accordingly, this data synthesis proposes a first attempt to decipher spatio-temporal trends of metal contamination along seven major continental rivers in Western Europe (France, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands).