Application of the Morphological Quality Index (MQI) to European case studies

The Morphological Quality Index (MQI) and the Morphological Quality Index for monitoring (MQIm) have been applied to eight case studies with the objectives of: (1) testing and improving the new versions of the indices, and (2) analyzing the hydromorphological response to various restoration measures. For each restored reach, the two indices were applied to the pre-restoration and post-restoration conditions. The restored reach was also compared to an adjacent, degraded reach. Results show that in all cases the restoration measures improved the morphological quality of the reach, but that the degree of improvement depends on many factors, including the initial morphological conditions, channel morphology, the length of the restored portion in relation to the reach length, and on the type of intervention.