Advanced Training course: RIVER FLOODPLAIN ECOLOGY – BIOGEOCHEMICAL ASPECTS AND RELATED ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONS and RIVER FLOODPLAIN ECOLOGY – GENERAL RIVER FLOODPLAIN ECOLOGY
1. Organization
- Host: Can Tho University
- Date: 26/02/2018 – 02/03/2018
- Venue: Meeting room, College of Aquaculture and Fisheries, Can Tho University
- Lecturers: Prof. Thomas Hein and Dr. Elisabeth Bondar-Kunze. BOKU University, Austria
- Attendants: total of 11 including staff and MSc students shown in following table:
| No. | Names | University | Staff | Students | Nationality |
| 1 | Vo Dan Thanh | AGU | X | Vietnam | |
| 2 | Huynh Phuoc Vinh | CTU | X | Vietnam | |
| 3 | Tran Sy Nam | CTU | X | Vietnam | |
| 4 | Nguyen Xuan Loc | CTU | x | Vietnam | |
| 5 | Pin Kakada | RUPP | MSc | Cambodia | |
| 6 | Mom Lita | UBB | MSc | Cambodia | |
| 7 | Touch Nget | CTU | MSc | Cambodia | |
| 8 | Mey Sothea | CTU | MSc | Cambodia | |
| 9 | Aina Ayotunde O | CTU | MSc | Nigeria | |
| 10 | Charles Muhirwa | CTU | MSc | Rwanda | |
| 11 | Siwema Luvanga | CTU | MSc | Tanzania |
2. Contents of the course
Theory
I. RIVER FLOODPLAIN ECOLOGY – BIOGEOCHEMICAL ASPECTS AND RELATED ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONS
1. Basic properties of river systems
- Brief introduction to floodplain ecology
- Main aspects of the aquatic ecology
- Main characteristics of river systems
- Rivers in the global water cycle
- Importance of water level fluctuations
- Global trends – nutrient levels
2. Underlying ecological concepts of river systems
- Overview – Important concepts of river systems
- River Continuum Concept
- Underlying concept ‐ Nutrient Spiraling
- Flood Pulse Concept (Junk et al. 1989)
- Ecological connectivity
- Worldwide Ecosystem Services
- Restoration
3. The Human dimension and Pressures and changes of river systems
- Human demand in the Anthropocene
- Main threats to rivers
- Human water use/security and river biodiversity
- Student presentations
II. RIVER FLOODPLAIN ECOLOGY – BIOGEOCHEMICAL ASPECTS AND RELATED ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONS
- Overview ecosystem functions
- Biogeochemical processes as ecosystem functions
- Biogeochemical processes in aquatic systems
- Biogeochemical processes methods
III. PARTICIPANT SEMINARS
– Reading paper
– Presenting key information
– Giving an overview on relevant graphs
– Trying to link main messages / information to the situation of the Mekong
– Presentation for 15min
Practice
1. Field sampling
- Collecting water and sediment samples along the Mekong river at polluted sites and unpolluted sites
2. Lab work – analysing different parameters
- Nutrients – PO4 in water and sediment samples
- Respiration: measurement of DO at different points of times within 24 hours to measure the respiration of water sample and water sample plus sediment sample
- TSS – total suspended solids
3. Result discussion
Certification handling: at the end of the course, most of participants were awarded a certificate certified his/her participation of the course.
Pics of the ATC
