Aiming to describe the role of dominant ecological factors and of human activities on the organisms of running water and the functioning of the ecosystem, this work covers the few European water courses that are well known in ecological studies.
- Running water - agent of erosion, transport and redistribution of materials of the Earth's crust
- general characteristics of hydrographic networks
- organisms and ecosystems of running water
- current and benthic organisms - chronic instability of the surface horizon of the substrate
- the hyporheic environment - continuity of the substrate
- macrophytes of running waters - a substrate for algae and fauna
- life in the water trail - plankton
- fishes of running waters
- temperature, biological cycles and distribution of organisms
- light, salts and dissolved oxygen - secondary ecological factors in running water
- food webs and energy flows
- from upstream to downstream - ecological zonation of water courses
- ecological impacts of development of water courses
- from europhication to trophic pollution
- toxic pollution
- biological methods of evaluating pollution