Aquatic and Wetland Vegetation Along the Sava River

Abstract

Diverse hydrological, climate, and soil conditions along the Sava River caused significant diversification of vegetation. Therefore, the objective of this chapter is to integrate and present all the available data on variability of the aquatic and riparian plant communities along the Sava River and its main tributaries as well as to identify the environmental factors, which are related to the distribution of different vegetation types. Special attention has been also paid on the detection of threats for rare and endangered plant species and fragile wetland ecosystems along the Sava River. Based on data review, syntaxonomic revision of aquatic and riparian vegetation based on common, pan-European databank is required. Ecological studies that involve inventory, monitoring, modeling, and prediction of changes in populations, ecological communities, and ecosystems require both georeferenced databases and computational tools for application of statistical methods.