7377

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7377
• Author: Kusler, J. A. and S. Daly.
• Title: Wetlands and River Corridor Management.
• USFW Year: 1989.
• USFW - Doc Type: \
• Copyright Material: NO

administrators) engineers or water resources
planners familiar with traditional approaches. (2)
Traditional approaches are viewed as "tried and
tested". (3) Funding agencies or organizations
ranging from the World Bank to the U.S. Office of
Management and Budget favor definable, relatively
large scale "projects" with favorable cost-benefit
ratios. Protection of a natural channel and
adjacent floodplain often does not meet the
conventional concept of a "project". It might be
cost effective in the long run in comparison to an
engineering project for reducing flood losses but
benefits must be taken for preventing future
development (often not considered an acceptable
benefit item) in contrast with protecting existing
development (an acceptable benefit item).
- Jurisdictional authority over river corridor
areas is highly fragmented. Efforts to formulate
and implement multiobjective projects are often
frustrated by the large number of governmental
units with jurisdiction over even a modest section
(e.g. 50 miles) of a river or stream. These units
often include many towns or cities, one or more
counties, the state, and one or more federal
agencies (Platt, 1987). This has led to the
formation of a fair number of informal (e.g.,
Portland, Oregon, Johnson Creek Heritage Council),
partially formal, or formal, statutory councils or
planning bodies (e.g., the Delaware River Basin
Commission).
XMS TO SUCCESS
As noted above, multiobjective river corridor
management involves new emphases and a balanced
consideration of implementation techniques. Multi-
objective river corridor management is an approach
rather than a single end result. The "keys to
success" in various multiobjective river corridor
management efforts differ. However, a number of
key elements characterize many of these efforts.
These are outlined in Table 4. Many of these
recommendations may be grouped under two major
headings:
A Shift in Philosophy
First, multiobjective river corridor management
requires a philosophical shift not only with
regard to goals but to the factors considered and
the implementation techniques. Many of the
incentives and much of the "know how" for multi-
objective river corridor management are already in
place in the United States. A revolution in river
management goals is not needed, nor is extensive
new legislation or huge new budgets. What is
needed is to much more broadly apply what is known
about hydrology, geomorphology, and ecology in
creative "consensus" ways to manage waters and
adjacent floodplains and wetlands as integrated
landscape features.
To accomplish this, agency personnel at all
levels of government, landowners, grant-awarders,
scientists and engineers need to approach river
corridor management contexts with healthy
skepticism of traditional approaches and a
creative problem-solving mindset:
- it should be assumed that traditional
solutions to river management problems are not
necessarily the best approaches for meeting
multiobjective river corridor management needs for
a particular segment of river or parcel of land.
This does not mean getting "rid of cement" or
going to "soft engineering" in all instances. It
does mean asking the right questions. Some of
these questions include:
- Who (private, public) has a present and
future stake in particular waters and lands?
- What goals do they have for management of
these lands and waters and how can common
goals be defined and consensus reached?
- What are the net benefits and costs of
attempting to locate particular activities on
river corridor lands versus other lands?
- What are the common denominators and
differences between these goals?
- What engineering and nonengineering
implementation techniques are available to
achieve these goals?
- What are the short term and long term total
costs and benefits and advantages/
disadvantages of various implementation
approaches including maintenance costs?
- Who will benefit and who will pay?
- What are the short term and long term natural
processes (hydrologic, geomorphological,
ecological) at work?
- What are the natural functions and values of
an unaltered river corridor?
- What will be the impacts of various
implementation approaches including engineer-
ing works upon those functions and values?
- Will the functions and values need to be
replaced? If so, how, and at what cost?
- How can economic development needs be met
with the least impact on rivers and adjacent
wetlands?
- How, and can, implementation be funded?
- What are the political and legal realities of
implementation?
- It should be realized that multiobjective
management must often be achieved through multi-
obiective use of each segment of a river rather
than simply allocating different segments to
different single purpose uses. This is an
important shift in philosophy from one which
allocates different sections of river and river
corridor land to different uses, often with little
thought of impact on upstream or downstream
areas.
- The general assumptions that the "narrowest
possible" floodplain or floodway and the quickest
possible movement of water from upstream to
downstream points along a stream are desirable
should be carefully reevaluated for applicability
in specific contexts. Traditionally it has often
been assumed that it is in the public interest to
reduce the floodplain to as small a conveyance
area as possible by deepening the channel,
straightening the channel, and reducing flow
resistance through clearing of vegetation and use
of concrete. While a small conveyance area may be
desirable in some instances (e.g., reduction in
flood losses to existing structures), a narrow,
deep concrete channel destroys wetlands, wildlife,
and fisheries, accelerates downstream flood flows
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