Advancing River Restoration and Management
2 total works
Environmental Flow Assessment
by John G Williams, Peter B Moyle, J. Angus Webb, and G. Mathias Kondolf
Provides critiques of current practices for environmental flow assessment and shows how they can be improved, using case studies.
In Environmental Flow Assessment: Methods and Applications, four leading experts critique methods used to manage flows in regulated streams and rivers to balance environmental (instream) and out-of-stream uses of water. Intended for managers as well as practitioners, the book dissects the shortcomings of commonly used approaches, and offers practical advice for selecting and implementing better ones.
The authors argue that methods for environmental flow assessment (EFA) can be defensible as well as practicable only if they squarely address uncertainty, and provide guidance for doing so. Introductory chapters describe the scientific and social reasons that EFA is hard, and provide a brief history. Because management of regulated streams starts with understanding freshwater ecosystems, Environmental Flow Assessment: Methods and Applications includes chapters on flow and organisms in streams. The following chapters assess standard and emerging methods, how they should be tested, and how they should (or should not) be applied. The book concludes with practical recommendations for implementing environmental flow assessment.
- Describes historical and recent trends in environmental flow assessment
- Directly addresses practical difficulties with applying a scientifically informed approach in contentious circumstances
- Serves as an effective introduction to the relevant literature, with many references to articles in related scientific fields
- Pays close attention to statistical issues such as sampling, estimation of statistical uncertainty, and model selection
- Includes recommendations for methods and approaches
- Examines how methods have been tested in the past and shows how they should be tested today and in the future
Environmental Flow Assessment: Methods and Applications is an excellent book for biologists and specialists in allied fields such as engineering, ecology, fluvial geomorphology, environmental planning, landscape architecture, along with river managers and decision makers.
Fluvial Geomorphology studies the biophysical processes acting in rivers, and the sediment patterns and landforms resulting from them. It is a discipline of synthesis, with roots in geology, geography, and river engineering, and with strong interactions with allied fields such as ecology, engineering and landscape architecture.? This book comprehensively reviews tools used in fluvial geomorphology, at a level suitable to guide the selection of research methods for a given question. Presenting an integrated approach to the interdisciplinary nature of the subject, it provides guidance for researchers and professionals on the tools available to answer questions on river restoration and management.
Thoroughly updated since the first edition in 2003 by experts in their subfields, the book presents state-of-the-art tools that have revolutionized fluvial geomorphology in recent decades, such as physical and numerical modelling, remote sensing and GIS, new field techniques, advances in dating, tracking and sourcing, statistical approaches as well as more traditional methods such as the systems framework, stratigraphic analysis, form and flow characterisation and historical analysis.
This book:
- Covers five main types of geomorphological questions and their associated tools: historical framework; spatial framework; chemical, physical and biological methods; analysis of processes and forms; and future understanding framework.
- Provides guidance on advantages and limitations of different tools for different applications, data sources, equipment and supplies needed, and case studies illustrating their application in an integrated perspective.
It is an essential resource for researchers and professional geomorphologists, hydrologists, geologists, engineers, planners, and ecologists concerned with river management, conservation and restoration. It is a useful supplementary textbook for upper level undergraduate and graduate courses in Geography, Geology, Environmental Science, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and interdisciplinary courses in river management and restoration.