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This chapter focuses on the restoration of the rivers of the Klamath region. The Trinity River Restoration Program proposed four river-building processes: water flow, vegetation, channel morphology, and sediment management. Efforts to restore the Klamath River's anandromous fish populations are ongoing, but have made less progress than was originally hoped for. Along the Klamath River, watershed restoration is under way, at Bluff Creek, at Elk Creek, in the Scott River, and in the upper basin.

This chapter focuses on the restoration and rehabilitation of rivers. When applied to rivers, restoration is strictly defined as a return to a close approximation of the river condition before disturbance. Rehabilitation refers to improvements in condition that do not attempt any return to predisturbance conditions. Restoration includes both river form and function, whereas rehabilitation may focus on river form. River rehabilitation is undertaken for many reasons. Sometimes the intent of rehabilitation is to reduce channel erosion in order to improve water quality or control eroding banks threatening structures or causing property loss. The chapter discusses how the intent of a river rehabilitation project is often to improve the aquatic or riverside habitat for a particular species. This may present special challenges in that it is difficult to quantify the habitat needs of a species.

This chapter focuses on the burgeoning river-restoration movement in the United States and explores its premise, promises, and challenges. Nearly all of America's rivers are developed, dammed, diverted, dried up, or dirtied. But increasingly Americans want rivers that are clean, free-flowing, teeming with fish and wildlife, and inviting for sports and recreation. To achieve that, it will be necessary to restore a lot of river miles and preserve the small fraction of our rivers that are still relatively pristine. The task may seem insurmountable; nearly all of America's rivers have been altered by 200 years of water development. This chapter examines efforts to restore some of the river segments that have been damaged so that they meet society's increasing demand for clean, living rivers, with particular emphasis on the people behind these restoration projects. It also considers the so-called “water hubris” mentality, which can be seen in the design and construction of Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona; this dam created a reservoir called Lake Powell with a shoreline longer than the West Coast.

This chapter examines some urban river restoration projects in the United States, including the history-based project in Richmond, Virginia; the ambitious plans for Boston's Charles River; and the seemingly impossible task of bringing a little life back to the Los Angeles River. It also looks at the removal of Embry Dam on the Rappahannock River. It argues that urban river restoration and preservation are not about being antidevelopment. On the contrary, river restoration in urban areas restores property values and attracts development. Most projects designed to restore urban riverfronts involve recycling abandoned and abused areas of town and remaking them as trendy new areas in which to live, work, and enjoy life. Finally, rivers are often the only open, quiet space in crowded urban areas. They are a way to enrich the lives of city dwellers and provide a relaxing contrast to concrete and steel.

This chapter focuses on the “use” of rivers as valuable habitat for wildlife and endangered species. Rivers are far more than just the source of drinking water for two-thirds of the people in the United States. They present an opportunity for people to engage with a dramatic potpourri of life that is found nowhere else. Rivers also tend to concentrate rare and endangered species, not only because they are such hospitable places, but also because riparian corridors are often the only land that has not been developed. This makes rivers target central for the intense battles over rare or endangered species. Many river restoration and preservation efforts involve such species. Aside from protecting endangered species, the reemergence of riverine habitats also plays a crucial role in the economy, lifestyle, and culture of most regions of the country. This chapter describes river restoration projects that focus on anadromous fish species and occur on both coasts in the states of Washington, Maine, and California.

This chapter takes a look at the future and the evolution of a wholly different concept of the way we interact with rivers. In particular, it considers the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon and the most famous river run—and the dams that almost drowned it. The Marble Canyon section of the Colorado River offers some of the best white-water rafting in the world, including the “Roaring Twenties.” The Colorado River in the Grand Canyon reels under the onslaught of industrial tourism. One of the basic premises of this book is that rivers should be managed as a commons—a resource that belongs to society as a whole and not to a narrow group of well-heeled special interests. But in some cases that goal can be met by providing greater opportunities for water marketing and by valuing water according to market prices. The key is to manage water in ways that mimic market efficiencies while preserving public interests. And in order to remake America's rivers via restoration, an army of instigators is required.

This chapter examines the history of American river development through one of its major proponents, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps of Engineers is one of the oldest agencies in the federal government, created when Washington, DC, was both literally and figuratively a swamp. By 1824 the principal transportation corridor linking together the growing nation was the Mississippi River and its largest tributary, the Ohio. Congress ordered the Corps to rid those rivers of dangerous “planters, sawyers or snags.” This was the beginning of a long era of expansion for the Corps—an era that has yet to end. The Corps adopted the motto “Building Strong,” intended as a reference to the durability of its construction works, but also a telling metaphor for the political relationships the Corps has nurtured over two centuries. Among its projects are Elk Creek Dam in Oregon and the Kissimmee River restoration project in Florida.

This chapter examines how water pollution diminished the value of American rivers and destroyed their essence as a natural resource. For more than 200 years, rivers in America were used as a convenient dumpsite for sewage, toxic waste, and agricultural runoff. This occurred despite the fact that two-thirds of the country's drinking water comes from rivers. The effort to pass meaningful and enforceable national water quality standards was a long, incremental struggle that finally bore fruit in 1972, when the Clean Water Act, to be administered by the newly created Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), was passed into law. Two years later, Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act. This chapter considers the experiences of three cities—Atlanta, Washington DC, and Seattle—that each has committed grievous sins against a local watercourse, but has made dramatic efforts to correct past mistakes. In particular, it looks at each city's river restoration initiatives.

This chapter examines how flood control diminished the value of American rivers as a natural resource and instead allocated them to narrow, extractive uses. The federal government warns that floods are “America's number one natural disaster,” but the only thing natural about them is the rise in water level; the resulting destruction can be attributed to humans. But that is small consolation to those who, perhaps unwittingly, make their homes in the path of a moving wall of water. This is why levees are built, led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The construction of a levee is relatively simple, as is the politics of levee building. There are flood management structures all over the nation, but nowhere is the titanic struggle between low-lying people and high-flying water more dramatic than in the Lower Mississippi River Valley. It is an illusion to think that the Mississippi River can be effectively controlled. The best we can hope for is river restoration and a powerful lesson about what happens when we try to force big rivers into narrow ditches.

Chapter 8 reviews the progress of the Ecological approach across the world, in both developed and developing countries. In the United States, this progress can be seen in both dam removal and river restoration activities, including attempts to resuscitate the Colorado River Delta. In Europe, the progress of the Ecological approach has assumed a comprehensive character, as evidenced by the European Union’s Water Framework Directive (WFD) of 2000. The Ecological approach has made advances in developing countries too, many of which were practicing the pre-industrial variant of the Ecological approach until recently. The Narmada Bachao Andolon of India was a strong manifestation of the Ecological approach. Influenced, in part, by their pre-industrial ecological traditions, many developing countries have now taken such advanced steps as giving rivers and nature constitutional rights to exist and survive and not be disrupted by human interventions. These broader initiatives have provided further impetus for the Ecological approach to spread in developing countries.

Three general steps move civic ecology practices from small local innovations to broader policy innovations: giving a label to the phenomenon (in our case “civic ecology”); becoming more effective as local providers of ecosystem services and contributors to community well-being through partnerships with scientists; and government and larger NGOs formulating policies that allow civic ecology practices to spread. Civic ecology practices are small social or “social-ecological innovations,” whereas larger NGOs and government agencies are policy entrepreneurs who shape the policy environment. Policy entrepreneurs can also bridge between multiple civic ecology practices and larger management initiatives to form regional adaptive and collaborative resource management systems.

This chapter examines how agriculture diminished the value of America's rivers as a whole and instead allocated them to narrow, extractive uses. Agriculture consumes 34 percent of America's water, and more than 80 percent in the case of the arid western states. In addition, agriculture is now one of the largest sources of water pollution in the nation, as well as one of the largest users of barge channels, which have had devastating impacts on riparian habitat, wetlands, and riverine species. The extractive use of the American rivers for a single industry competes directly with other river uses, such as fishing, hydropower, urban amenity use and potable water, recreation and tourism, and endangered-species protection. As a result, agriculture plays a role in most river restoration efforts. The impact of agriculture on waterways is so great that a true rebirth of America's rivers will require fundamental changes in federal agricultural policy. This chapter provides a historical overview of America's agro-industrial complex and considers the role of capitalism in bringing rationality to U.S. farm policy.

Aquatic ecosystems are particularly sensitive to climate change due to the high heat capacity of water, the probability of altered thermal regimes, and changes to coupled thermal-hydrological variability. This chapter draws together the strategies, options, and processes available to protect and restore vulnerable aquatic ecosystems and threatened species. Options include freshwater protected area management; restoring flow regimes; improved dam operations and floodplain management; coherent approaches to legislation, policy, and governance to support environmental flow management; and greater indigenous engagement and learning. A vigorous global river and catchment restoration effort is needed to help restore and protect ecosystems and species threatened by climatic and human stressors. Much can be achieved if humans can learn to live with and celebrate variability, diversity, and change.