Impact of a 100-year flood on vegetation, benthic invertebrates, riparian fauna and large woody debris standing stock in an alpine floodplain

This paper investigates the impact of a 100-year flood in May 1999 on community composition and large woody debris standing stock in an alpine floodplain (Isar, Germany). Detailed pre-flood data sampled from 1993 to 1998 are compared with the situation directly after the flood. In those parts of the Isar floodplain mainly covered with pioneer vegetation prior to flooding, the coverage of unvegetated gravel bars increased by 22% following the flood. However, the flood did not remove larger amounts of older successional vegetation stages (willow thickets, floodplain forest). No significant changes in the benthic invertebrate fauna were recorded. The lowest densities of riparian ground beetles (Carabidae) within the study were recorded one month after the flood. Two months later, the ground beetle densities increased to the highest values ever recorded, indicating the ground beetle's high potential for recolonization. These results highlight the degree of resilience of both the aquatic and the riparian invertebrate fauna. The flood also caused a significant increase in large woody debris standing stock; in one section the number of logs increased tenfold and the volume increased by a factor of 20, leading to the assumption that most woody debris in alluvial flood-plains is provided by catastrophic events. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.