Large Dam and River Dynamics
Large Dam and River Dynamics

Author: Sujit Mandal

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2024-04-19

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1527556492

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This volume brings together various research articles exploring different aspects of fluvial geomorphology and its role in floodplain management. It considers various geomorphic, quantitative and statistical techniques and methods for addressing fluvial morphodynamics, and details quantitative analysis of morphodynamic variables of river basins. The book also highlights the application of fluvial morphology in the management of land and water resources, as well as human resources of the riverine environment. It will be of interest to researchers and academicians, as well as planners and policy makers for ensuing river basin management and development.

River Dynamics
River Dynamics

Author: Bruce L. Rhoads

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-04-29

Total Pages: 544

ISBN-13: 1108173780

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Rivers are important agents of change that shape the Earth's surface and evolve through time in response to fluctuations in climate and other environmental conditions. They are fundamental in landscape development, and essential for water supply, irrigation, and transportation. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the geomorphological processes that shape rivers and that produce change in the form of rivers. It explores how the dynamics of rivers are being affected by anthropogenic change, including climate change, dam construction, and modification of rivers for flood control and land drainage. It discusses how concern about environmental degradation of rivers has led to the emergence of management strategies to restore and naturalize these systems, and how river management techniques work best when coordinated with the natural dynamics of rivers. This textbook provides an excellent resource for students, researchers, and professionals in fluvial geomorphology, hydrology, river science, and environmental policy.

Riverine Ecosystem Management
Riverine Ecosystem Management

Author: Stefan Schmutz

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-05-08

Total Pages: 562

ISBN-13: 3319732501

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This open access book surveys the frontier of scientific river research and provides examples to guide management towards a sustainable future of riverine ecosystems. Principal structures and functions of the biogeosphere of rivers are explained; key threats are identified, and effective solutions for restoration and mitigation are provided. Rivers are among the most threatened ecosystems of the world. They increasingly suffer from pollution, water abstraction, river channelisation and damming. Fundamental knowledge of ecosystem structure and function is necessary to understand how human acitivities interfere with natural processes and which interventions are feasible to rectify this. Modern water legislation strives for sustainable water resource management and protection of important habitats and species. However, decision makers would benefit from more profound understanding of ecosystem degradation processes and of innovative methodologies and tools for efficient mitigation and restoration. The book provides best-practice examples of sustainable river management from on-site studies, European-wide analyses and case studies from other parts of the world. This book will be of interest to researchers in the field of aquatic ecology, river system functioning, conservation and restoration, to postgraduate students, to institutions involved in water management, and to water related industries.

Dams and Development
Dams and Development

Author: Sanjeev Khagram

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-08-06

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1501727397

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Big dams built for irrigation, power, water supply, and other purposes were among the most potent symbols of economic development for much of the twentieth century. Of late they have become a lightning rod for challenges to this vision of development as something planned by elites with scant regard for environmental and social consequences—especially for the populations that are displaced as their homelands are flooded. In this book, Sanjeev Khagram traces changes in our ideas of what constitutes appropriate development through the shifting transnational dynamics of big dam construction. Khagram tells the story of a growing, but contentious, world society that features novel and increasingly efficacious norms of appropriate behavior in such areas as human rights and environmental protection. The transnational coalitions and networks led by nongovernmental groups that espouse such norms may seem weak in comparison with states, corporations, and such international agencies as the World Bank. Yet they became progressively more effective at altering the policies and practices of these historically more powerful actors and organizations from the 1970s on. Khagram develops these claims in a detailed ethnographic account of the transnational struggles around the Narmada River Valley Dam Projects in central India, a huge complex of thirty large and more than three thousand small dams. He offers further substantiation through a comparative historical analysis of the political economy of big dam projects in India, Brazil, South Africa, and China as well as by examining the changing behavior of international agencies and global companies. The author concludes with a discussion of the World Commission on Dams, an innovative attempt in the late 1990s to generate new norms among conflicting stakeholders.

Environmental Flow Assessment
Environmental Flow Assessment

Author: John G. Williams

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2019-06-10

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1119217369

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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.

Sustainable Urban Environments
Sustainable Urban Environments

Author: Ellen M. van Bueren

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2011-09-15

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 9400712944

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The urban environment – buildings, cities and infrastructure – represents one of the most important contributors to climate change, while at the same time holding the key to a more sustainable way of living. The transformation from traditional to sustainable systems requires interdisciplinary knowledge of the re-design, construction, operation and maintenance of the built environment. Sustainable Urban Environments: An Ecosystem Approach presents fundamental knowledge of the built environment. Approaching the topic from an ecosystems perspective, it shows the reader how to combine diverse practical elements into sustainable solutions for future buildings and cities. You’ll learn to connect problems and solutions at different spatial scales, from urban ecology to material, water and energy use, from urban transport to livability and health. The authors introduce and explore a variety of governance tools that support the transformation process, and show how they can help overcome institutional barriers. The book concludes with an account of promising perspectives for achieving a sustainable built environment in industrialized countries. Offering a unique overview and understanding of the most pressing challenges in the built environment, Sustainable Urban Environments helps the reader grasp opportunities for integration of knowledge and technologies in the design, construction and management of the built environment. Students and practitioners who are eager to look beyond their own fields of interest will appreciate this book because of its depth and breadth of coverage.

Contested Knowledges
Contested Knowledges

Author: Esha Shah

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 9783038978114

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Locally and globally, mega-hydraulic projects have become deeply controversial. Recently, despite widespread critique, they have regained a new impetus worldwide. The developmentand operation of large dams and mega-hydraulic infrastructure projects are manifestations of contested knowledge regimes. In this special issue we present, analyze and critically engage with situations where multiple knowledge regimes interact and conflict with each other, and where different grounds for claiming the truth are used to construct hydrosocial realities. In this introductory paper, we outline the conceptual groundwork. We discuss ‘the dark legend of UnGovernance’ as an epistemological mainstay underlying the mega-hydraulic knowledge regimes, involving a deep, often subconscious, neglect of the multiplicity of hydrosocial territories and water cultures. Accordingly, modernist epistemic regimes tend to subjugate other knowledge systems and dichotomize ‘civilized Self’ versus ‘backward Other’; they depend upon depersonalized planning models that manufacture ignorance. Romanticizing and reifying the ‘othered’ hydrosocial territories and vernacular / indigenous knowledge, however, may pose a serious danger to dam-affected communities. Instead, we show how multiple forms of power challenge mega-hydraulic rationality thereby repoliticizing large dam regimes. This happens often through complex, multi-actor, multi-scalar coalitions that make that knowledge is co-created in informal arenas and battlefields.

River Mechanics
River Mechanics

Author: Pierre Y. Julien

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-04-12

Total Pages: 527

ISBN-13: 1107462770

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Completely updated and with three new chapters, this analysis of river dynamics is invaluable for advanced students, researchers and practitioners.

Intertidal Deposits
Intertidal Deposits

Author: Eisma Doeke

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2019-07-23

Total Pages: 546

ISBN-13: 0429605641

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Intertidal Deposits: River Mouths, Tidal Flats, and Coastal Lagoons combines the authors personal and professional experience with the mass of available literature to present a cohesive overview of intertidal deposits and the widely diverse conditions of their formation worldwide. This includes the strong influence of water movements, climate, sediment particle characteristics, vegetation, fauna, and man. Intertidal areas are important for many reasons both scientifically and economically and recently, a growing concern for conservation of these fragile regions strives to preserve and protect their natural balance. This book, written by an international expert in the field, concentrates on the more important intertidal areas distinguished by size and morphology, tidal range, the degree and type of vegetational cover, the amount and type of benthic fauna, the extent of human exploitation, and the degree of previous study.

River Dynamics and Integrated River Management
River Dynamics and Integrated River Management

Author: Zhao-Yin Wang

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2014-09-24

Total Pages: 855

ISBN-13: 364225652X

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"River Dynamics and Integrated River Management” provides comprehensive information on rivers for integrated management, including natural processes, stresses resulting from human activities, and restoration of various parts of the river basin, including the watershed, mountain streams, alluvial rivers, estuaries, and natural and man-made lakes. Essential concepts, traditional and modern, such as river patterns, step-pool systems, vegetation-erosion charts, habitat diversity, and flushing times of bays, are clearly defined physically and explained with figures and pictures. Detailed mathematics and rigorous analyses are avoided so as to facilitate a holistic view of the subject of integrated river management. Researchers can easily familiarize themselves with the science of river management in its widest sense with the impressive pictures and examples in this book. Dr. Zhaoyin Wang is a professor at the Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, China. Dr. Joseph H.W. Lee is a Chair Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, China. Dr. Charles S. Melching is a Professor at the College of Engineering, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA.