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Our rivers are in crisis and the need for river restoration has never been more urgent. Water security and biodiversity indices for all of the world’s major rivers have declined due to pollution, diversions, impoundments, fragmented flows, introduced and invasive species, and many other abuses. Developing successful restoration responses are essential. Renewing Our Rivers addresses this need head on with examples of how to design and implement stream-corridor restoration projects. Based on the experiences of seasoned professionals, Renewing Our Rivers provides stream restoration practitioners the main steps to develop successful and viable stream restoration projects that last. Ecologists, geomorphologists, and hydrologists from dryland regions of Australia, Mexico, and the United States share case studies and key lessons learned for successful restoration and renewal of our most vital resource. The aim of this guidebook is to offer essential restoration guidance that allows a start-to-finish overview of what it takes to bring back a damaged stream corridor. Chapters cover planning, such emerging themes as climate change and environmental flow, the nuances of implementing restoration tactics, and monitoring restoration results. Renewing Our Rivers provides community members, educators, students, natural resource practitioners, experts, and scientists broader perspectives on how to move the science of restoration to practical success.
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 --
Like many rivers of the arid Southwest, the Gila is for much of its length a dry bed except after seasonal rains. Yet a mere century ago it hosted a thriving biological community, and two centuries ago American Indians fished from its banks. It is no mystery how the desert swallowed up the Gila. Beaver trapping, overgrazing, and woodcutting first ruined natural watersheds, then damming confined the last drops of its surface flow. Historical sources and archaeological data inform us of the Gila's past, but its bird life further testifies to the changes. Amadeo Rea traces the decline of bird life on the Middle Gila in a book that addresses the broader issue of habitat deterioration. Bird lovers will find it a storehouse of data on avian migration patterns and on ornithological classification based on skeletal structure. Anthropologists can draw on its Piman ethnoclassification of birds, which links the Gila River tribe with various other Uto-Aztecan peoples of Mexico's west coast. But for all concerned with protecting our environment, Once a River offers evidence of change that might be apprehended elsewhere. It is a case history of a loss that perhaps need never have occurred.
Science Be Dammed is an alarming reminder of the high stakes in the management—and perils in the mismanagement—of water in the western United States. It seems deceptively simple: even when clear evidence was available that the Colorado River could not sustain ambitious dreaming and planning by decision-makers throughout the twentieth century, river planners and political operatives irresponsibly made the least sustainable and most dangerous long-term decisions. Arguing that the science of the early twentieth century can shed new light on the mistakes at the heart of the over-allocation of the Colorado River, authors Eric Kuhn and John Fleck delve into rarely reported early studies, showing that scientists warned as early as the 1920s that there was not enough water for the farms and cities boosters wanted to build. Contrary to a common myth that the authors of the Colorado River Compact did the best they could with limited information, Kuhn and Fleck show that development boosters selectively chose the information needed to support their dreams, ignoring inconvenient science that suggested a more cautious approach. Today water managers are struggling to come to terms with the mistakes of the past. Focused on both science and policy, Kuhn and Fleck unravel the tangled web that has constructed the current crisis. With key decisions being made now, including negotiations for rules governing how the Colorado River water will be used after 2026, Science Be Dammed offers a clear-eyed path forward by looking back. Understanding how mistakes were made is crucial to understanding our contemporary problems. Science Be Dammed offers important lessons in the age of climate change about the necessity of seeking out the best science to support the decisions we make.
Poet and writer Alison Deming once noted, ÒIn the desert, one finds the way by tracing the aftermath of water . . . Ó Here, Ken Lamberton finds his way through a lifetime of exploring southern ArizonaÕs Santa Cruz River. This riverÑdry, still, and silent one moment, a thundering torrent of mud the nextÑserves as a reflection of the desert around it: a hint of water on parched sand, a path to redemption across a thirsty landscape. With his latest book, Lamberton takes us on a trek across the land of three nationsÑthe United States, Mexico, and the Tohono OÕodham NationÑas he hikes the riverÕs path from its source and introduces us to people who draw identity from the riverÑdedicated professionals, hardworking locals, and the authorÕs own family. These people each have their own stories of the river and its effect on their lives, and their narratives add immeasurable richness and depth to LambertonÕs own astute observations and picturesque descriptions. Unlike books that detail only the Santa CruzÕs decline, Dry River offers a more balanced, at times even optimistic, view of the river that ignites hope for reclamation and offers a call to action rather than indulging in despair and resignation. At once a fascinating cultural history lesson and an important reminder that learning from the past can help us fix what we have damaged, Dry River is both a story about the amazing complexity of this troubled desert waterway and a celebration of one manÕs lifelong journey with the people and places touched by it.
Leading landscape architect and planner Carl Steinitz has developed an innovative GIS-based simulation modeling strategy that considers the demographic, economic, physical, and environmental processes of an area and projects the consequences to that area of various land-use planning and management decisions. The results of such projections, and the approach itself, are known as "alternative futures." Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes presents for the first time in book form a detailed case study of one alternative futures project—an analysis of development and conservation options for the Upper San Pedro River Basin in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. The area is internationally recognized for its high levels of biodiversity, and like many regions, it is facing increased pressures from nearby population centers, agriculture, and mining interests. Local officials and others planning for the future of the region are seeking to balance the needs of the natural environment with those of local human communities. The book describes how the research team, working with local stakeholders, developed a set of scenarios which encompassed public opinion on the major issues facing the area. They then simulated an array of possible patterns of land uses and assessed the resultant impacts on biodiversity and related environmental factors including vegetation, hydrology, and visual preference. The book gives a comprehensive overview of how the study was conducted, along with descriptions and analysis of the alternative futures that resulted. It includes more than 30 charts and graphs and more than 150 color figures. Scenario-based studies of alternative futures offer communities a powerful tool for making better-informed decisions today, which can help lead to an improved future. Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes presents an important look at this promising approach and how it works for planners, landscape architects, local officials, and anyone involved with making land use decisions on local and regional scales.
Photographs made in Grand Canyon a century ago may provide us today with a sense of history; photographs made a century later from the same vantage points give us a more precise picture of change in this seemingly timeless place. Between 1889 and 1890, Robert Brewster Stanton made photographs every 1-2 miles through the river corridor for the purpose of planning a water-level railroad route and produced the largest collection of photographs of the Colorado River at one point in time. Robert Webb, a USGS hydrologist conducting research on debris flows in the Canyon, obtained the photographs and from 1989 to 1995 replicated all 445 of the views captured by Stanton, matching as closely as possible the original camera positions and lighting conditions. Grand Canyon, a Century of Change assembles the most dramatic of these paired photographs to demonstrate both the persistence of nature and the presence of humanity. Unexpected longevity of some plant species, effects of animal grazing, and expansion of cacti are all captured by the replicate photographs. More telling is evidence of the impact of Glen Canyon Dam: increased riparian vegetation, new marshes, aggraded debris fans, and eroded sand bars. In the accompanying text, Webb provides a thorough analysis of what each pair of photographs shows and places the project in its historical context. Complementing his narrative are six sidebar articles by authorities on Canyon natural history that further attest to a century of change. The level of detail obtained from the photographs represents one of the most extensive long-term monitoring efforts ever conducted in a national park; it is the most detailed documentation effort ever performed using repeat photography. Much more than simply a picture book, Grand Canyon, a Century of Change is an environmental history of the river corridor, a fascinating book that clearly shows the impact of human influence on Grand Canyon and warns us that its future is very much in our hands.
Woody wetlands constitute a relatively small but extremely important part of the landscape in the southwestern United States. These riparian habitats support more than one-third of the regionÕs vascular plant species, are home to a variety of wildlife, and provide essential havens for dozens of migratory animals. Because of their limited size and disproportionately high biological value, the goal of protecting wetland environments frequently takes priority over nearly all other habitat types. In The Ribbon of Green, hydrologists Robert H. Webb, and Stanley A. Leake and botanist Raymond M. Turner examine the factors that affect the stability of woody riparian vegetation, one of the largest components of riparian areas. Such factors include the diversion of surface water, flood control, and the excessive use of groundwater. Combining repeat photography with historical context and information on species composition, they document more than 140 years of change. Contrary to the common assumption of widespread losses of this type of ecosystem, the authors show that vegetation has increased on many river reaches as a result of flood control, favorable climatic conditions, and large winter floods that encourage ecosystem disturbance, germination, and the establishment of species in newly generated openings. Bringing well-documented and accessible insights to the ecological study of wetlands, this book will influence our perception of change in riparian ecosystems and how riparian restoration is practiced in the Southwest, and it will serve as an important reference in courses on plant ecology, riparian ecology, and ecosystem management.
A study of the geology and ground water in the Gila River flood plain and the adjacent terraces.
The question of whether the earth's climate is changing in some significant human-induced way remains a matter of much debate. But the fact that climate is variable over time is well known. These two elements of climatic uncertainty affect water resources planning and management in the American West. Managing Water Resources in the West Under Conditions of Climate Uncertainty examines the scientific basis for predictions of climate change, the implications of climate uncertainty for water resources management, and the management options available for responding to climate variability and potential climate change.