Rashid's Blog: A Place for Inquisitive Souls

We’ve seen what you should do in terms of river restoration in our last post. Now, what shouldn’t you do? What are the things that cause river restoration schemes to fail?

DON’T neglect the three key components: form, process and materials. Intrinsically linked, these three components determine the way rivers work and should be ever-present in your thoughts on river restoration. Do you want shallow sloping river banks to encourage emergent vegetation and berm creation (form), or do you need fast flows and surface roughness to increase aeration and dissolved oxygen content (process)? In both cases you’ll have to think about the type of substrate you’ll need (materials); fine sediment for berm creation and gravel sediment for riffle creation.

DON’T forget it’s about more than just geomorphology. Water chemistry, seed banks, longitudinal connectivity, allocthononous nutrient inputs, diffuse pollution sources and ecological elements such as competition, succession and behaviour will…

River restoration was recently described to me as being more of an art than a science. Well, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that it is a somewhat subjective practice. That isn’t to say we can’t lay down some guidelines. What should we always try and do when we’re doing river restoration?

DO engage stakeholders: a large element of river restoration work involves educating people about the way in which our watercourses would naturally function. Additionally, by including different people you can better appreciate the multitude of concerns likely to arise from your planned works. An increasing number of projects are involving volunteers, which is both instructive and cost-effective.

DO get expert opinions: Try and get as much independent, expert advice as possible. People’s notions of what constitutes good river restoration may be distorted through experience, training or personal bias. It’s only in the last decade or so that applied fluvial geomorphology…