River Conservation: Challenges and Opportunities PDF Download

Author: Sergi Sabater
Publisher: Fundacion BBVA
ISBN: 8492937475
Category : Stream conservation
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Author: Juliet C. Stromberg
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816527526
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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contributors - biologists, ecologists, geomorphologists, historians, hydrologists, lawyers, and political scientists - weave together threads from their diverse perspectives to reveal the processes that shape the past, present, and future of the San Pedro's riparian and aquatic ecosystems. They review the biological communities of the San Pedro and the stream hydrology and geomorphology that affects its riparian biota. They then look at conservation and management challenges along three sections of the San Pedro, from its headwaters in Mexico in its confluence with the Gila River, describing legal and policy issues and their interface with science; activities related to mitigation, conservation, and restoration; and a prognosis of the potential for sustaining the basin's riparian system." "Complemented by a foreword written by James Shuttleworth, these chapters demonstrate the complexity of the San Pedro's ecological and hydrological conditions, showing that there are no easy --

Author: Philip Boon
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470682086
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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This book is intended for those with an academic, scientific and practical interest in river conservation and management. It provides an overview of how changes in legislation, policies, institutional responsibilities, science, technology, practical techniques and public perception have influenced how rivers have been managed over the past 20 years and the challenges that lie ahead during the next 20 years. The book is based on the international conference River Conservation and Management:20 Years On held at York. Thirty-one chapters, with contributions from North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australasia provide a wide-ranging perspective on this complex but profoundly important subject. Following an introduction that chronicles the most important contextual changes, the book is organized into four broad topics: Catchment management, ecosystem integrity and the threats to river ecosystems – this covers progress on understanding and addressing the pressures affecting rivers, many of which will be amplified by climate change and increasing human demands for water; Methods and approaches – illustrating some recent techniques that have been developed to assess condition and conservation status across different types of river; Recovery and rehabilitation – providing an insight into the principles, practice, public involvement and institutional networks that support and make improvements to modified river reaches; Integrating nature conservation into wider river management –demonstrating the importance of integrated planning, involvement of local communities and the use of adaptive management in achieving multiple environmental and economic benefits along rivers used for different purposes. The final chapter discusses the challenges faced in dealing with an uncertain future. More than 1200 different references and numerous web-site citations provide the reader with an invaluable source of knowledge on the subject area.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309179076
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Rivers provide about 60 percent of the nation's drinking water and irrigation water and 10 percent of the nation's electric power needs. The multiple and sometimes incompatible services demanded of rivers often lead to policy and management conflicts that require the integration of science-based information. This report advises the U.S. Geological Survey on how it can best address river science challenges by effectively using its resources and coordinating its activities with other agencies. The report identifies the highest priority river science issues for the USGS, including environmental flows and river restoration, sediment transport and geomorphology, and groundwater surface-water interactions. It also recommends two cross-cutting science activities including surveying and mapping the nation's river systems according to key physical and landscape features, and expanding work on predictive models, especially those that simulate interactions between physical-biological processes. The report identifies key variables to be monitored and data-managed. It proposes enhancements in streamflow, biological, and sediment monitoring; these include establishing multidisciplinary, integrated reach-scale monitoring sites and developing a comprehensive national sediment monitoring program. Finally, it encourages the USGS to be at the forefront of new technology application, including airborne lidar and embedded, networked, wireless sensors.

Author: David Dudgeon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108882625
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 517

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Growing human populations and higher demands for water impose increasing impacts and stresses upon freshwater biodiversity. Their combined effects have made these animals more endangered than their terrestrial and marine counterparts. Overuse and contamination of water, overexploitation and overfishing, introduction of alien species, and alteration of natural flow regimes have led to a 'great thinning' and declines in abundance of freshwater animals, a 'great shrinking' in body size with reductions in large species, and a 'great mixing' whereby the spread of introduced species has tended to homogenize previously dissimilar communities in different parts of the world. Climate change and warming temperatures will alter global water availability, and exacerbate the other threat factors. What conservation action is needed to halt or reverse these trends, and preserve freshwater biodiversity in a rapidly changing world? This book offers the tools and approaches that can be deployed to help conserve freshwater biodiversity.

Author: Philip Boon
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119961963
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
This book is intended for those with an academic, scientific and practical interest in river conservation and management. It provides an overview of how changes in legislation, policies, institutional responsibilities, science, technology, practical techniques and public perception have influenced how rivers have been managed over the past 20 years and the challenges that lie ahead during the next 20 years. The book is based on the international conference River Conservation and Management:20 Years On held at York. Thirty-one chapters, with contributions from North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australasia provide a wide-ranging perspective on this complex but profoundly important subject. Following an introduction that chronicles the most important contextual changes, the book is organized into four broad topics: Catchment management, ecosystem integrity and the threats to river ecosystems – this covers progress on understanding and addressing the pressures affecting rivers, many of which will be amplified by climate change and increasing human demands for water; Methods and approaches – illustrating some recent techniques that have been developed to assess condition and conservation status across different types of river; Recovery and rehabilitation – providing an insight into the principles, practice, public involvement and institutional networks that support and make improvements to modified river reaches; Integrating nature conservation into wider river management –demonstrating the importance of integrated planning, involvement of local communities and the use of adaptive management in achieving multiple environmental and economic benefits along rivers used for different purposes. The final chapter discusses the challenges faced in dealing with an uncertain future. More than 1200 different references and numerous web-site citations provide the reader with an invaluable source of knowledge on the subject area.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309256224
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Extensively modified over the last century and a half, California's San Francisco Bay Delta Estuary remains biologically diverse and functions as a central element in California's water supply system. Uncertainties about the future, actions taken under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) and companion California statues, and lawsuits have led to conflict concerning the timing and amount of water that can be diverted from the Delta for agriculture, municipal, and industrial purposes and concerning how much water is needed to protect the Delta ecosystem and its component species. Sustainable Water and Environmental Management in the California Bay-Delta focuses on scientific questions, assumptions, and conclusions underlying water-management alternatives and reviews the initial public draft of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan in terms of adequacy of its use of science and adaptive management. In addition, this report identifies the factors that may be contributing to the decline of federally listed species, recommend future water-supple and delivery options that reflect proper consideration of climate change and compatibility with objectives of maintaining a sustainable Bay-Delta ecosystem, advises what degree of restoration of the Delta system is likely to be attainable, and provides metrics that can be used by resource managers to measure progress toward restoration goals.

Author: Sandra Postel
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597267805
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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The conventional approach to river protection has focused on water quality and maintaining some "minimum" flow that was thought necessary to ensure the viability of a river. In recent years, however, scientific research has underscored the idea that the ecological health of a river system depends not on a minimum amount of water at any one time but on the naturally variable quantity and timing of flows throughout the year. In Rivers for Life, leading water experts Sandra Postel and Brian Richter explain why restoring and preserving more natural river flows are key to sustaining freshwater biodiversity and healthy river systems, and describe innovative policies, scientific approaches, and management reforms for achieving those goals. Sandra Postel and Brian Richter: explain the value of healthy rivers to human and ecosystem health; describe the ecological processes that support river ecosystems and how they have been disrupted by dams, diversions, and other alterations; consider the scientific basis for determining how much water a river needs; examine new management paradigms focused on restoring flow patterns and sustaining ecological health; assess the policy options available for managing rivers and other freshwater systems; explore building blocks for better river governance. Sandra Postel and Brian Richter offer case studies of river management from the United States (the San Pedro, Green, and Missouri), Australia (the Brisbane), and South Africa (the Sabie), along with numerous examples of new and innovative policy approaches that are being implemented in those and other countries. Rivers for Life presents a global perspective on the challenges of managing water for people and nature, with a concise yet comprehensive overview of the relevant science, policy, and management issues. It presents exciting and inspirational information for anyone concerned with water policy, planning and management, river conservation, freshwater biodiversity, or related topics.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309177812
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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The Mississippi River is, in many ways, the nation's best known and most important river system. Mississippi River water quality is of paramount importance for sustaining the many uses of the river including drinking water, recreational and commercial activities, and support for the river's ecosystems and the environmental goods and services they provide. The Clean Water Act, passed by Congress in 1972, is the cornerstone of surface water quality protection in the United States, employing regulatory and nonregulatory measures designed to reduce direct pollutant discharges into waterways. The Clean Water Act has reduced much pollution in the Mississippi River from "point sources" such as industries and water treatment plants, but problems stemming from urban runoff, agriculture, and other "non-point sources" have proven more difficult to address. This book concludes that too little coordination among the 10 states along the river has left the Mississippi River an "orphan" from a water quality monitoring and assessment perspective. Stronger leadership from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is needed to address these problems. Specifically, the EPA should establish a water quality data-sharing system for the length of the river, and work with the states to establish and achieve water quality standards. The Mississippi River corridor states also should be more proactive and cooperative in their water quality programs. For this effort, the EPA and the Mississippi River states should draw upon the lengthy experience of federal-interstate cooperation in managing water quality in the Chesapeake Bay.

Author: Daniel C. Dauwalter
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781934874578
Category : Freshwater fishes
Languages : en
Pages : 693

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