developed a variety of new and innovative
<br />approaches for goal-setting in particular river
<br />and river corridor contexts, and for planning,
<br />coordination of programs, constituency-building
<br />and financing of efforts. These include various
<br />special area management planning approaches, river
<br />corridor planning efforts for particular rivers or
<br />segments of rivers, stormwater planning and
<br />management programs, stormwater utility
<br />approaches, and other financing mechanisms.
<br />Guidebooks have also been developed that describe
<br />the implementation of these approaches (National
<br />Park Service 1986; NY DEC 1986).
<br />IMPEDIMENTS TO IMPLEMENTATION
<br />Despite the advantages, multiobjective river
<br />corridor management efforts continue to face
<br />impediments:
<br />- Traditional approaches have great momentum.
<br />Many factors favor continuation of old approaches.
<br />It is perhaps human nature to apply "familiar"
<br />solutions to problems. Traditional engineering
<br />approaches are all that many design professionals
<br />(engineers, water resources planners) know. Such
<br />approaches are the only ones which have been
<br />taught in schools. In addition, engineers have a
<br />fear of legal liability in applying new designs
<br />which may not perform as anticipated. Beyond this,
<br />the entire set of relationships and friendships
<br />that water resources agencies, engineers, and
<br />contractors have developed over a period of years
<br />tend to support traditional approaches.
<br />Traditional engineering projects often involve
<br />substantial contracting and jobs for an area;
<br />natural area protection does not.
<br />- Most federal, state, and (to a lesser extent)
<br />local river management programs continue to be
<br />single purpose or for a small number of purposes.
<br />Individual government programs usually continue to
<br />be designed to serve a primary objective or a
<br />small number of objectives. Given limited
<br />statutory or program objectives, it is often
<br />difficult for staff of single-objective agencies
<br />to undertake multiobjective projects, fund such
<br />projects, or even provide technical assistance for
<br />such projects. There are few incentives for
<br />coordination among agencies and, in many
<br />instances, out and out turf battles when one
<br />agency attempts to do something that overlaps with
<br />activities of another agency. Efforts to achieve
<br />various objectives may conflict (particularly when
<br />traditional approaches are applied) and agencies
<br />then often "battle it out" rather than seek
<br />multiobjective solutions. Or, they may simply
<br />avoid multiobjective situations where their
<br />jurisdictions may overlap.
<br />- There is often little incentive for agencies,
<br />groups or organizations to cooperate as long as
<br />they have enough money and/or political support to
<br />carry out single objective management. Agencies
<br />often have little incentive to cooperate with
<br />other agencies, providing they can carry out their
<br />primary mission without such cooperation.
<br />Cooperation is often viewed as time-consuming and
<br />adding complexity. It may involve compromising
<br />"turf" and sharing credit for successful efforts.
<br />Cooperative mechanisms may also be lacking or
<br />inadequate.
<br />- Multidisciplinary expertise is lacking.
<br />Individual experts whose skills and knowledge are
<br />needed for multiobjective assessments, designs,
<br />and implementation are not widely available. Those
<br />designing river corridor projects often have
<br />limited knowledge outside of their immediate areas
<br />of expertise. Hydrologists often know little about
<br />sediment transport and bank stability problems or
<br />about biological aspects of river management.
<br />Biologists and botanists often know little about
<br />hydrology, erosion, or engineering design.
<br />Engineers often know a fair amount about hydrology
<br />but little about sediment or biology or botany.
<br />Planners often have limited knowledge of
<br />hydrology, geology, botany or biology. These
<br />individuals may not only have limited knowledge of
<br />these disciplines, but they may view with mistrust
<br />individuals with other expertise.
<br />- There are inadequate design manuals and
<br />training for multiobjective approaches. Despite
<br />quite widespread use of various "soft engineering"
<br />approaches in the last decade, there have been
<br />limited studies to determine how well such
<br />approaches perform in major flood events and even
<br />less written on the topic. Design manuals
<br />concerning various innovative design techniques
<br />are not widely available, nor has training been
<br />provided to planners, engineers, local govern-
<br />ments, and other key decision-makers and design
<br />professionals.
<br />- The data base and modelling capabilities are
<br />improved but have limitations. Although the data
<br />and map base has greatly improved during the last
<br />decade, certain types of data are lacking (e.g.,
<br />erosion and sedimentation) and maps are often at
<br />too small a scale for detailed planning and
<br />management (e.g. 1/24,000). In addition, most of
<br />the flood hazard and water quality data-gathering
<br />and mapping to date has been for larger rivers and
<br />streams with little data available for smaller
<br />water bodies. Finally, modeling capabilities have
<br />been improved but much remains to be done to
<br />develop adequate predictive capability with regard
<br />to flood storage and conveyance, erosion, sediment
<br />transport, the response of streams to changes in
<br />sediment regime, and wetland restoration and
<br />creation.
<br />- Inflexible regulatory standards fail to allow
<br />innovation and tailoring to factual situations. In
<br />some instances, rigid regulations adopted to
<br />achieve particular goals such as flood loss
<br />reduction may prevent innovative multiobjective
<br />approaches. For example, stormwater regulations
<br />which require concrete channels and below ground
<br />systems may reduce flood losses but they also may
<br />prevent the use of above ground grassed channels
<br />with not only flood conveyance but water quality
<br />protection and maintenance potential.
<br />- Domestic and international funding sources
<br />often favor engineering projects. On the
<br />international scene and, to a lesser extent, on
<br />the domestic U.S. scene, there is often a
<br />continued strong bias toward structural
<br />approaches. There are several reasons for this:
<br />(1) Funding organizations are often staffed
<br />primarily by (in addition to economists and
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