Author: riverlab

Adapting to sea level rise: Emerging governance issues in the San Francisco Bay Region

This recently published study by Pedro J. Pinto, Matt Kondolf, and Raymond Wong  (Environmental Science and Policy 90: 28-37) explores examples where actual implementation of SLR adaptation has led, or may lead to, the need to revise standards and practices or require uneasy choices between conflicting public interests.  While there is broad agreement in principle in the San Francisco Bay region on the need to adapt to sea-level rise through innovative approaches, actual implementation has proven difficult because of institutional complexity and communication challenges among stakeholders, including conflicting agency mandates and priorities.  Removing institutional barriers to adaptation will almost certainly require some agencies to adapt their policies, but path dependence is an obstacle.  The article is available for free download until 18 November here. 

A related paper explores why the SF Bay is so highly vulnerable to sea-level rise by comparison to the Tagus Estuary, Lisbon, Portugal, which is physiographically similar but was subject to a very different development history. A key difference was the role of the US Swamp Act of 1850, which turned tidal lands over from the federal government to states so the latter could encourage drainage and development, leading ultimately to a vast area of urban settlement subject to inundation in coming decades.  By contrast, in Portugal such tidal lands remained in the control of the crown, and were managed mostly for low-intensity agriculture, so today these lands are available to accommodate the landward migration of tidal wetlands with sea level rise, without conflicting with most urban land uses.  The paper,

“Evolution of two urbanized estuaries: environmental change, legal framework, and implications for sea-level rise vulnerability” (Water 8:535) is available online (open access) at http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/8/11/535/pdf

 

‘Horizontal levee’ with migrating ecotone. (adapted from HDR 2015)

Parallel trends in river evolution across continents in the Anthropocene: implications for sustainable water and environment

Tuesday 11 September 2018, 3:30-5pm, Rm 223 Moses Hall, UC Berkeley

The term ‘Anthropocene’ is proposed for our current epoch, in which the role of human activity is beginning to exceed that of natural forces in shaping the earth’s surface.  Rivers are now adjusting their morphology from the cumulative impact of many drivers for change operating at multiple spatial and temporal scales: changing land uses, instream aggregate mining, channelization, bank protection and dam construction, alongside changing flood and flow regimes.  In response, river channels have narrowed, incised into their beds, reduced their lateral activity, and frequently changed from multi-thread to single-thread channel patterns.   Integrative analyses of these multiple causes and effects were impractical until recent improvements in digital technologies and data availability.  Synthesis of prior cumulative impact studies and a GIS-based analysis of newly available digital data demonstrate that river systems (in both the Old World and New) became significantly simplified, more static, and more homogenous over the 20th century, with important implications for river ecosystems and the benefits provided to human populations.

 

The Santa Clara River flows through a complex floodplain landscape in Southern California.

 

Peter Downs is an Associate Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Plymouth, UK.  Previously at the University of Nottingham, Peter also spent ten years in interdisciplinary professional practice in the Bay Area which continues to guide his research interests in fluvial geomorphology, river restoration, and science and policy in river basin management.  Recent projects have involved the development of a process-based sediment budget, investigating the coarse sediment dynamics in upland channels, and passive monitoring of coarse sediment fluxes using seismic impact plates.  In each case, research is stimulated by a distinct practical challenge.  The topic of this seminar stems from a EURIAS Senior Fellowship (2016-17), spent at the Collegium de Lyon Institute for Advanced Studies, initiating research into the cumulative impact of human activities and natural factors in determining the evolution of river channels during the late Anthropocene.

 

This seminar is presented as part of the interdisciplinary faculty seminar series Water Management: Past and Future Adaptation of the UC Berkeley Institute of International Studies.

Colloquium Lecture: Social Connectivity of Urban Rivers

Wednesday, September 5, 2018, 315A Wurster Hall, UC Berkeley, 1:10PM – 2:00PM

Professor G. Mathias Kondolf
University of California, Berkeley Landscape Arch. & Environmental Planning, Co-Director Global Metropolitan Studies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social connectivity of urban rivers is the communication and movement of people, goods, ideas, and culture along and across rivers, recognizing longitudinal, lateral, and vertical connectivity, social interactions that are especially intense and pervasive in urban reaches of rivers. Urban riverfront projects have become ubiquitous in the developed, and increasingly in the developing worlds, but these projects raise questions about what constitutes ‘restoration’ in the urban context, and to what degree natural processes and ecological values can be restored in an urban context.

 

Mathias Kondolf is a fluvial geomorphologist, Professor of Environmental Planning at the University of California Berkeley, and fellow at the Collegium, Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Lyon, France. He teaches courses in hydrology, river restoration, and environmental science. He researches human-river interactions, including managing flood-prone lands, urban rivers, sediment in rivers and reservoirs, and river restoration and advises governments and non-governmental organizations on sustainable management of rivers.

Dams, Sediment Discontinuity, and Management Responses in Mediterranean River Basins

Friday 05 October 2018 (0900 – 1800), Amphithéâtre René Descartes, ENS de Lyon, France

>>Text in French

A 1-day conference at the Ecole Normal Superior of Lyon, France, will examine human-induced disturbance of sediment continuity at the river-basin scale and its potential management/restoration, from both a physical science and environmental history perspective. The conference focuses on three Mediterranean river basins, the Rhone, Ebro, and Po, drawing lessons from these relatively simple cases. Subsequent efforts will address more complex river basins involving multiple, often adversarial, sovereign states. (In English and French, with simultaneous translation.)

>> Conference programme

Human alterations increasing sediment yields from the upland landscape, sediment trapping above dams, and consequences of sediment starvation downstream. (from Kondolf & Piégay 2011)

Rivers carry not only water, but sediment.  Recent interest in river basin management has mostly concerned management of water resources, with relatively little attention paid to the sediment continuity essential to maintain downstream channel functions/form and coastal features.  Despite widespread increases in land disturbance and consequent increased sediment yields from upland areas in many areas, especially in the developing world, the sediment loads of most major rivers have decreased in recent decades – as a result of extensive trapping of sediment by dams, increasingly manifest in accelerated coastal erosion and loss of delta lands.

In this conference, we examine three large rivers in southern Europe: the Rhône, Ebro, and Po. All three have experienced afforestation of their mountainous headwaters since the 19th century, which has reduced erosion rates and sediment supply to the river system. All three have been extensively modified and impounded for irrigation water supply, hydroelectric production, flood control, and navigation, mined for production of construction aggregate, and otherwise altered for human uses, and all three evince problems of erosion and subsidence of sediment-deprived deltas.  All three have basins that are all or dominantly in one state (or two), which simplifies somewhat the challenge of basin-scale management.  All three have had some basin-scale planning, the Ebro perhaps most notably with establishment of its Hydrographic Confederation in the 1920s, some years before the better-known Tennessee Valley Authority in the US.  All three are subject to EU regulations, notably the Water Framework Directive.

For each river, we will summarize sediment continuity in the context of physical and ecological processes at the basin scale, and the environmental history and institutional setting.  We seek to understand better, at the basin scale, how and why sediment continuity has changed over the past two centuries, whether and how these changes were understood and managed, and whether there has been recognition (and management) at this scale.

From our review of the literature on river-basin scale planning and management, there has been little basin-scale understanding and management of sediment issues reported, even where problems have been manifest, such as shrinking deltas.  In part, this is probably attributable to the lack of overall river basin authorities, or the fact that these authorities, where they exist, are unlikely to recognize sediment management as a pressing issue.  And many rivers drain territory in multiple states, complicating the problems, especially where there is tension between the states.

This conference will feature presentations on the three river basins from both physical geography and environmental history/social sciences perspectives, and discussants setting these basins in a larger framework.  (in English and French with simultaneous translation)

Hosted by the Collegium – Lyon Institute of Advanced Studies and the CNRS Laboratory UMR 5600 Environnement Ville Société, the conference is co-sponsored by the Agence Francaise de la Biodiversité, Eléctricité de France, and Companie Nationale du Rhône, in collaboration GRAIE and the Agence de l’Eau Rhône-Méditerranée-Corse.  This conference is coordinated with a broader research effort initiated by Professor G Mathias Kondolf (UC Berkeley) and Asst Professor Giacomo Parrinello (Sciences Po), The Social Life of the Sediment Balance: A Social and Geomorphic Approach to the Transformation of River Systems and Deltas, supported by the France-Berkeley Fund and a UC Berkeley Social Science Matrix-Sciences Po collaboration grant.

 

References

Kondolf, G.M. and Piégay, H. 2011. Geomorphology and society. Chapter 6 in Handbook of Geomorphology, K. Gregory, ed., SAGE Publications, London, pp.105-117.

Les Barrages, La Discontinuité Sédimentaire et leur Gestion dans les Bassins Versants Méditerranéens

Vendredi 5 octobre 2018 (05/10/2018), Amphithéâtre René Descartes, ENS de Lyon

>>Text in English

Une colloque à l’École Normale Supérieure de Lyon examinera la perturbation anthropique de la continuité des sédiments à l’échelle du bassin fluvial et son potentiel de gestion et restauration, d’une perspective des sciences physiques et humaines. La conférence se concentre sur trois bassins fluviaux méditerranéens, le Rhône, l’Ebre et le Pô, en tirant des leçons de ces cas relativement simples. Les efforts ultérieurs porteront sur des bassins fluviaux plus complexes impliquant plusieurs États souverains. (En anglais et en français, avec traduction simultanée.)

>>Le programme de la conférence

Figure 1. Human alterations increasing sediment yields from the upland landscape, sediment trapping above dams, and consequences of sediment starvation downstream. (from Kondolf & Piégay 2011)

Les rivières ne charrient pas que de l’eau, mais aussi des sédiments. L’attention récente autour de la gestion de bassins versants a été plutôt portée sur la gestion des ressources hydrauliques et relativement peu à la continuité sédimentaire, essentielle au maintien des formes et fonctions des chenaux à l’aval ainsi qu’aux formes du littoral. Malgré l’intensification de l’utilisation du sol et en conséquence de l’augmentation de l’érosion du sol dans les montagnes de nombreuses régions, en particulier dans les pays en développement, les charges sédimentaires dans la plupart des rivières ont décru ces dernières décennies – résultat d’un piégeage important des sédiments par les barrages qui se manifeste davantage par l’accélération de l’érosion du littoral et la réduction de la surface des deltas.

Dans cette conférence nous examinons trois grandes rivières du sud de l’Europe : le Rhône, l’Ebro et le Po. Tous trois ont connu le reboisement de leurs sources montagneuses depuis le 19ème siècle, ce qui a réduit les taux d’érosion et l’apport de sédiments dans le réseau hydrographique. Toutes trois ont été largement modifiées et aménagées pour l’irrigation, la production hydroélectrique, le contrôle des inondations et la navigation, et ont été minées pour obtenir des graviers pour la construction, et plus largement modifiées pour des usages humains. Toutes trois ont des bassins versants principalement situés dans un Etat (ou deux), ce qui simplifie d’une certaine façon le défi de la gestion à l’échelle de leurs bassins versants. Ces derniers ont trois fait l’objet d’une planification à l’échelle du bassin mais l’Ebro peut-être plus que les autres avec l’établissement de sa confédération hydrographique dans les années vingt, quelques années avant le plus connu Tenessee Valley Authority aux Etats-Unis. Tous trois sont sujets aux régulations européennes, particulièrement la directive-cadre sur l’eau.

Pour chacune de ces rivières nous établissons l’état de la continuité sédimentaire dans le contexte de processus physiques et écologiques à l’échelle du bassin, l’histoire environnementale et le cadre institutionnel. Nous cherchons à comprendre mieux, à l’échelle d’un bassin, comment et pourquoi la continuité sédimentaire a changé au cours des deux derniers siècles, si et comment ces changements ont été compris et gérés, et si il y a eu une réflexion (et une gestion) au l’échelle du bassin.

A partir de notre lecture de la littérature sur les plans de gestions et les mesures mises en place à l’échelle d’une rivière ou d’un bassin, nous avons trouvé peu de problématiques liées à la compréhension et la gestion à ces échelles, même quand des problèmes, tels que le rétrécissement des deltas, ont été manifestes. Ceci est probablement attribuable en partie au manque d’autorités compétentes à l’échelle d’un bassin entier, ou au fait que ces autorités, quand elles existent, considérent peu la gestion des sédiments comme une problématique urgente. Plusieurs rivières drainent des terrains dans plusieurs Etats, compliquant le problème, particulièrement lorsqu’il y a des tensions entre les Etats.

Cette conférence mettra en avant sur les trois bassins versants desapproches à la fois de géographie physique et des sciences sociales et historiques, et les participants placeront ces bassins dans des cadres plus larges.  Elle se tiendra en anglais et en français avec traduction simultanée.

Accueillie par le Collegium – Institut d’Etudes Avancées de Lyon, et le laboratoire Environnement Ville Société UMR 5600 du CNRS, la conférence est co-financée par l’Agence Française de la Biodiversité, Electricité de France et la Compagnie Nationale du Rhône, en collaboration avec GRAIE et l’Agence de l’Eau Rhône-Méditerranée-Corse.  Cette conférence est coordonnée avec un effort de recherche plus large initié par le Professeur G Mathias Kondolf (UC Berkeley) et le Professeur Giacomo Parrinello (Sciences Po), La vie sociale du bilan sédimentaire : une approche sociale et géomorphique de la transformation des systèmes fluviaux et deltas, soutenu par le Fonds France-Berkeley et une bourse de collaboration Social Science Matrix-Sciences Po de l’UC Berkeley.

 

Bibliographie

Kondolf, G.M. and Piégay, H. 2011. Geomorphology and society. Chapter 6 in Handbook of Geomorphology, K. Gregory, ed., SAGE Publications, London, pp.105-117.

The Social Life of the Sediment Balance: A social and geomorphic approach to the transformation of river systems and deltas

A new collaborative project will explore the social and natural processes that lead to the modification of sediment balance in rivers. Interdisciplinary scholarship on river systems and society is usually concerned with water flows, but rarely with sediment balance. Sediments, however, are essential components of river systems. Hydroelectric dams, canals, navigation, sand and gravel mining, and other human uses alter sediment fluxes, often with detrimental consequences on the river morphology and ecology as well as on coastal land.

The project will bring together two scholars with different perspectives on this topic: Giacomo Parrinello, Assistant Professor of Environmental History at the Centre for History at Sciences Po (CHSP), brings a social science and history background, while G. Mathias Kondolf, Professor of Environmental Planning and Geography in UC Berkeley’s Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, is an expert in the geomorphology of river systems. Parrinello and Kondolf received one of four inaugural grants from the UC Berkeley Social Science Matrix and Sciences Po to develop their project. See Matrix webpage for more details.

New Science Requirements in Support of a Modernized Columbia River Treaty

The Columbia River Treaty was an innovative agreement to coordinate management of the Columbia River to maximize benefits and equitably share them between the US and Canada.  It has been recognized as an excellent example of trans-boundary integrated water resources management, the concept that river basins be managed as integrated systems so that the total benefits are greater than would be the case if each country managed purely on its own narrow self interest, and then those benefits can be equitably shared.  When the Treaty was ratified in 1964, it did not adequately account for fisheries, river ecology, and the interests of tribes and first nations.  The impending treaty renewal has been widely seen as providing an opportunity to update the treaty by including consideration of these issues.  There are scientific uncertainties regarding impacts of dams and potential to restore fisheries on the river and its tributaries, the benefits of flood storage in Canadian dams, etc, which merit attention.  And looming over all treaty-related deliberations now is the recent change in US administrations, introducing uncertainty about whether the US will respect the cooperative nature of the last five decades of trans-boundary management of the Columbia River and approach updating of the agreement in a collaborative manner.

A group of scientists supported by representatives of First Nations and Tribes from Canada and the United States held a workshop at the Centre for Canadian Studies and Institute of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in April 2017 to develop recommendations for effectively integrating science into the treaty renewal process.

Changing Channels Workshop

A review and discussion of the science of stream restoration in the Russian River Watershed

January 26, 2018, 8:30 am-5 pm

Cloverdale Citrus Fairgrounds Auditorium, 1 Citrus Fair Drive, Cloverdale, CA

Topics

The geomorphic and watershed processes creating entrenched channels; limitations to riparian and aquatic habitat in entrenched channels; influences of historical developments on present day creek form and function; examples of restoration techniques that address entrenchment; and a discussion of the effects of recent fires on creeks.

Featured Speakers

Dr. Matt Kondolf & Dr. Doug Shields, Russian River Independent Science Review Panel

Drs. Lorraine & Alan Flint, Climate Scientists, USGS

Dr. Brian Cluer, NOAA

Downloads

Workshop Flyer and Agenda

New Publication on Mekong Delta, free access until 15 February

A team of active researchers in the Mekong have published a paper, Changing sediment budget of the Mekong: Cumulative threats and management strategies for a large river basin, available for free downloads until 15 February.

Abstract
Two decades after the construction of the first major dam, the Mekong basin and its six riparian countries have seen rapid economic growth and development of the river system. Hydropower dams, aggregate mines, flood-control dykes, and groundwater-irrigated agriculture have all provided short-term economic benefits throughout the basin. However, it is becoming evident that anthropic changes are significantly affecting the natural functioning of the river and its floodplains. We now ask if these changes are risking major adverse impacts for the 70 million people living in the Mekong Basin. Many livelihoods in the basin depend on ecosystem services that will be strongly impacted by alterations of the sediment transport processes that drive river and delta morpho-dynamics, which underpin a sustainable future for the Mekong basin and Delta.

Drawing upon ongoing and recently published research, we provide an overview of key drivers of change (hydropower development, sand mining, dyking and water infrastructures, climate change, and accelerated subsidence from pumping) for the Mekong’s sediment budget, and their likely individual and cumulative impacts on the river system. Our results quantify the degree to which the Mekong delta, which receives the impacts from the entire connected river basin, is increasingly vulnerable in the face of declining sediment loads, rising seas and subsiding land. Without concerted action, it is likely that nearly half of the Delta’s land surface will be below sea level by 2100, with the remaining areas impacted by salinization and frequent flooding. The threat to the Delta can be understood only in the context of processes in the entire river basin. The Mekong River case can serve to raise awareness of how the connected functions of river systems in general depend on undisturbed sediment transport, thereby informing planning for other large river basins currently embarking on rapid economic development.

Human-River Interactions in Cities

ISRivers Conference Session

With the explosion of urban waterfront revitalization projects in the developed world, it is timely to reflect on the relations between cities and their rivers: how the rivers influenced development of the cities, how cities have treated their riverfronts over time, and how the spatial relations of city and river constrain and enable improved connectivity between urban populations and their rivers.  This topic will be explored in a session in the upcoming conference ISRivers in Lyon, France, 4-8 June 2018.  IS Rivers, held every three years, is an interesting mix of researchers and practioners, from Europe and beyond.  The setting in Lyon is particularly good for our topic, as the ‘reconquest’ of the banks of the Rhone is a compelling story of returning river banks to ‘the people’ (in this case, from their former use as parking lots).

Human-River Interactions in Cities: Special Issue in Sustainabilty

Editors: G. Mathias Kondolf, Amir Gohar, and Yves-François LeLay

Most cities are located on rivers, and for very good historical reasons that included navigation/commerce, fisheries, water supply, waste disposal, and quotidian uses such as washing clothes. The identities and distinctive characteristics of many cities are closely tied to their rivers, and the many ways their residents interact with their urban waters. In recent decades, urban riverfront projects have become ubiquitous in the developed world, and increasingly promoted in the developing world. Both celebrated as revitalizing neglected urban centers and criticized for displacing the disenfranchised populations, these projects raise questions about what constitutes ‘restoration’ in the urban context, to what degree natural processes and ecological values can be restored in such contexts, and how sustainable ecological benefits will be in light of the urban context. In highly dense cities, the social benefits of restoration likely overshadow the potential ecological benefits. Moreover, attempts to transplant waterfront restoration approaches from a successful application in one city to another with different characteristics commonly fail when the diversity of fluvial process, form, and culture is not adequately accounted for. We invite your contributions to this special issue exploring these rich human-river interactions in the urban environment.