Living Rivers

You can't fight Mother Nature. For years, people have tried to make nature conform to their needs and desires; often times with disasterous consequences. Nowhere is this mindset more evident than in rivers and streams. People have moved, straightened, widened, deepened and bound waterways for a multitude of reasons, but to prevent flooding has always been near the top of the list. They seem to forget that floodplains were aptly named because rivers need to flood.

Rivers are a living, dynamic system to which flooding is like breath. The rivers may not take a breath as often as we humans do, but without it they too will certainly choke. Flooding releases sediment to the floodplains that would otherwise fill river beds. Flooding also provides nutrients to floodplain soils and replenishes wetlands. A healthy river is considered to be in a state of dynamic stability. It lives in a fairly definable corridor, within which meanders migrate, cutoff and reform as water and sediment are carried downstream.

I wish more people appreciated the natural beauty of a river. From headwaters to outlet, it maintains a delicate balance of flow and sediment and nourishes so many adjacent habitats. The studies of river hydraulics and geomorphology have allowed us to begin to understand the complex interactions of this system. Great researchers in this field, such as Luna B. Leopold and Dave Rosgen, have brought us closer to the goal of living with rivers instead of against them.