For decades, the River Kinzig (1058 km²) has been moderately stressed by hydromorphological degradation, land use and wastewater overflows. The Emscher catchment (775 km²), in contrast, comprises different sections: until recently highly degraded sites with untreated wastewater, restored sites of different ages and near-natural sites that have never been severely affected by humans, including the neighbouring Rotbach system. Accordingly, the two study systems comprise a gradient from near-natural over differently restored and differently degraded sites.

Both watersheds belong to the national, continental and global LTER networks (LTER-D, LTER-Europe, ILTER) and have been intensively investigated in Phase I of RESIST . While the sites in the Emscher catchment were initially restricted to the sub-catchment of the Boye, 14 additional sites in the Emscher main stem were included at the beginning of 2022, to explore the recolonization of the formerly wastewater-transporting river.

More information in the corresponding paper (Kaijser et al., preprint).