River functioning and resilience - River Keeper’s Handbook
Project Team: JHI and University of Stirling
Aims:
- To raise awareness of fundamental concepts in fluvial geomorphology and its importance (in a Scottish context) in determining the habitat that river ecosystems rely on and its role in natural flood management (NFM),
- To promote best practice for managing and restoring the geomorphology of rivers, and
- To raise awareness of human induced geomorphic pressures.
Background and policy/stakeholder relevance:
Through increasing awareness in target audiences, this book will help to implement the aims of WFD by improving or safeguarding the hydromorphology and ecology of Scotland’s rivers. Accomplishing these aims would in turn lead to multiple benefits such as increased biodiversity and improved NFM.
Outputs: A soft bound thirty page (max), colour book that is a suitable size for taking out into the field. The book will be split into two principal sections:
Concepts in fluvial geomorphology and ecology - This section would be approximately ten pages long and use conceptual diagrams to convey fundamental concepts of geomorphic drivers, processes, forms, change, and different temporal and spatial scales of understanding. An overview of how fluvial geomorphology influences the ecological integrity of river systems will also be given.
Fluvial geomorphology in the Scottish environment - This section would be at least fifteen pages long and would give an overview of Scottish river environments, natural forms and processes, issues and links to ecology. The information given would be highly visual and organised according to environment (e.g. upland, piedmont, lowland, urban).
HEI partners will contribute to the content and formatting of the book bringing their internationally recognised expertise in river geomorphology and detailed knowledge of Scottish fluvial geomorphology and links to ecology to ensure that the information provided is up to date and accurate.
Contact:
Stephen Addy (JHI)
