large wood, ecosystem services, fluvial geomorphology, review

Freshwater ecosystems are one with the highest number of ecosystem services owing to their semi-aquatic and semi-terrestrial character. It implies that the assessment of this ecosystems can represent a challenging process. Especially the research of river ecosystem services sometimes focuses only on the map measurable indicators or easy-to-calculate aspects of the mapped or classified units. We expect that such assessment could be improved by focusing on more detailed scale and by describing the typical phenomenon of the river (e.g., sediment regime, gravel bars, pool-riffle, and other features). In our research, we focused on large wood as a typical phenomenon of rivers draining forested riparian corridors all over the world. Presence of large wood in the river is linked to positive and negative benefits for society. We performed the systematic literature review to describe the current relations between large wood and ecosystem services. Of 499 articles, only 137 were eligible for identification of ecosystem services. Only two papers directly described the ecosystem services of large wood. So, we decided to analyse the rest of eligible papers (n=137), to extract their primary findings and to transfer them into ecosystem services (according to CICES V 5.1). We found that large wood is connected predominantly with following ecosystem services: specific habitat creation and increased channel heterogeneity. This implies the large wood is connected mainly to regulation and maintenance categories. Our research can serve as a basis for the detailed assessment and quantification of ecosystem services in the freshwater ecosystem. Findings can also be used to help plan and managing for nature-based solutions of rivers and surrounding floodplains.