Dams with a large retention volume often affect the runoff and sediment regime in downstream rivers. Thus, the natural dynamics, morphology and ecology of the remaining floodplain can be significantly impacted. In the Saane River below the Rossens dam (Canton of Fribourg) decades of residual flow management and a significant reduction of the sediment flux caused an insufficient dynamic of the flow and the sediment regime. As possible future compensation measure, a first artificial test flood was triggered from the dam in 2016 and locally combined with sediment replenishment downstream. River ecology and hydro-morphological data were sampled before, during and after the artificial flood. The ecological data in the residual flow reach of the Sarine were compared with surveys in the hydropeaking reach downstream of the turbines at Hauterive and in the Sense, a tributary of the Saane with a natural flow regime. The measured hydro-morphological characteristics allowed the comparison with the long-term experience of artificial floods at Spöl (Canton of Graubünden) downstream of Punt dal Gall dam. The results showed, as expected, that the Sense as the reference river with a natural runoff and a braided river bed has the highest EPT diversity of macroinvertebrates and the highest hydro-morphological diversity. In contrast, the values in the residual flow reach of the Saane were significantly smaller and an even larger reduction was measured in the hydropeaking reach, despite both river reaches have a meandering river bed. Even single artificial floods increase the hydro-morphological diversity in short-term, especially when there is enough sediment available. If artificial floods are triggered on a regular basis, a sustainable advantage can be achieved. Depending on the type of habitats, an artificial flood should be released about every 2 to 5 years, if needed with sediment replenishment downstream. Thereby, synergies with reservoir flushing through the bottom outlets as well as with venting of turbidity currents could be obtained, assuring a sufficient availability of suspended solids as for natural floods.