Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 20
Rehabilitation of the River Skerne and
the River Cole, England: A Long-Term
Public Perspective
E. Ulrika A
◦
berg
1
and Sue Tapsell
2
1
School of Geography, University of Leeds, UK
2
Flood Hazard Research Centre, Middlesex University, London, UK
Introduction
short and longer term, to establish how effective
schemes have been.
Although the importance of assessing the social
outcomes of river rehabilitation projects has been
widely recognized and advocated (Downs and
Kondolf, 2002; Palmer
et al.
, 2005; Wohl
et al.
,
2005; England
et al.
, 2008), there have been few
empirical instances where it has been carried out
(but see Tunstall
et al.
, 2000; Asakawa
et al.
, 2004;
Woolsey
et al.
, 2007; Schaich, 2009). Assessing
social outcomes has often been secondary to
environmental monitoring and is rarely an
integrated part of a river rehabilitation plan (Eden
and Tunstall, 2006). Large-scale habitat destruction
and increasing rates of species extinction emphasise
the importance of an ecosystem context for river
rehabilitation. However, very few rivers - and
especially those in need of rehabilitation - are
unaffected by human activity and pressures.
Society has become increasingly dependent
on river management through, for example,
irrigation, drainage, flood protection and hydro-
electric power generation. Rivers are therefore
expected to fulfil a range of human needs and
as a result rehabilitation work on degraded
systems is as much a social as an environmental
undertaking
Rehabilitation work has become an important
activity for improving the state of degraded river
systems around the world (Bernhardt
et al.
, 2005;
Dudgeon, 2005; Skinner and Bruce-Burgess,
2005). International programmes, agreements
and legislation, such as the United Nations
Local
Agenda 21
,
Millennium Declaration
,the
Water for
Life Decade
and, in particular, the European
Water Framework Directive (WFD; Council
of the European Communities, 2000), have
encouraged river managers to harmonize human
and environmental needs to achieve sustainable
ecosystem management.
River rehabilitation projects are increasing both
in size and number, but there is very little available
evidence that quantifies their ecological and social
benefits. The main reason for this is that most river
rehabilitation projects lack effective monitoring
data needed for evaluation, due primarily to
insufficient resources and poor planning (Kondolf
and Micheli, 1995; Bash and Ryan, 2002). Long-
term post-project monitoring of river rehabilitation
is particularly rare (Mitsch and Wilson, 1996;
Muotka
et al.
, 2002; Roni
et al.
, 2005). For adequate
evaluation, river rehabilitation monitoring needs to
cover environmental and social aspects, both in the
(Wohl
et al.
,
2005;
Pahl-Wostl,
2006).
