• River Network Toolkit
    A powerful tool for research
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    River networks made easy
    Fast & User-friendly

River Network Toolkit

A powerful tool for research, policymaking and environmental assessment

Network & Data
Calculations
Results

What does it aim

Connecting and integrating a hierarchically river network database with environmental or landscape data may help to predict and comprehend the effects of threats and stressors.

General-purpose geographic information systems software are limited or useless if one’s objective is to perform calculations considering routes or flow directions of freshwater networks connected to environmental data. The River Network Toolkit software specifically aims to fill this gap.

What does it do

RivTool is a unique software that uses the connection between drainage basins and river segments provided by a river network and integrates it with environmental data.

It gives users the possibility of calculating new information via network analysis.

What can we obtain

This table driven software characterises a river network based on topological features. By adding environmental data it is also possible to perform network analysis and obtain new data.

This software is a powerful tool for researchers, policymakers and for environmental assessment.

RivFish

RivFish provides a user dashboard with the occurrence of native freshwater-dependent fish species (resident and obligatory migrants, represented by the classes Actinopterygii and Petromyzontidae) across European river basins and Turkish river basins draining to the Black and the Mediterranean sea (delimited by the Orontes river basin).

This app uses the recently published RivFISH database which aggregates the available data on 667 freshwater-dependent fish species in Europe, validated at the river basin level (based on CCM2) and considering taxonomical synonyms for species names.

RivFish

RivConnect

RivConnect

RivConnect provides users the ability to perform quantitative network connectivity analysis based on graph theory. This app allows connectivity quantification methods to be applied to single or multiple basins according to their network characteristics, barrier types and fish community composition.

RivOpt

RivOpt provides users the ability to perform optimization targeting river connectivity restoration planning. This app allows users to consider the structural and functional connectivity needs of multiple different species with varying swimming capabilities, life-cycle patterns and dispersal behaviours, the financial cost of actions and interventions, direct economic benefits/costs to society (e.g., hydropower, water supply/storage), and changes in nonmarket ecosystem services (e.g., water purification, recreation, and flood control).

RivOpt

Improve your assessments support your decisions

River Network Toolkit

Why use it

This unique and user-friendly software integrates river networks with environmental information,
giving users the possibility to obtaining new data via network analysis.

Why use it
Takes full advantage of river network databases

RivTool provides unique features to take full advantage of hierarchical river networks, such as a set of comprehensive specific designed functions for calculations in river network analysis.

This software integrates data of hierarchical river networks with environmental data and enables the user to perform network analysis using this linkage.

With 26 different calculations already implemented and 16 more nearly ready, this software offers numerous possibilities to its users.

Able to deal with very large datasets while maintaining fast computations (e.g., calculating upstream drainage basin for 1.4 million segments takes less than 30 seconds). It is significantly faster than common GIS applications.

In some general-purpose GIS programs, although allowing the user to perform network analysis, the network has to be completely free of topological errors. For instance, having just one segment that is not integrally connected to the contiguous segment introduces artificial disconnectivity. By being table driven RivTool avoids this hurdle.

Universal applicability

Initially implemented to be used only with the Catchment Characterisation and Modelling (CCM) — River and Catchment Database, it has now a universal applicability because it allows a user to introduce a custom network.

Besides networks that have segments as the unit of resolution, it is possible to use a network of sub-basins.

The software already provides some ready-to-use libraries with processed environmental data (e.g., climate data) and river network maps.

It is a user-friendly software and powerful tool to be used by those involved in management, research and/or conservation of freshwater ecosystems.

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Fast & User-friendly

User Manual
7 Step Guide
RivTool Flyer
Scientific
Publication

Libraries

European Hydrological Network data - CCM2 Dataset

The compressed file includes all the hydrological network files generated from the Catchment Characterisation and Modelling v2.1 (CCM2) layers (Vogt et al., 2007). It includes a file that encompasses information on all sea outleats included in the CCM2 layer, and individual files for each sea outlet.

River Restoration Units Network Data for RivTool

Input network file to use the River Restoration Units for computations in the River Network Toolkit Software.

European Hydrological Network data - ECRINS Dataset

The compressed file includes all the hydrological network files generated based on both the European Catchments and Rivers Network System (ECRINS) (EEC, 2012) and Managing Aquatic Ecosystems and Resources under Multiple Stress (MARS) (www.mars-project.eu/index.php) layers considering only sea outlet basins with more than 50 Km2. It includes a file that encompasses information on all sea outlets and individual files for each sea outlet.

South America Hydrological Network data - HydroAtlas Dataset

South American hydrological network files for RivTool, created based on the HydroAtlas layers.

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