A Field Guide to British Rivers

<p>Temperate rivers are influenced by many factors including geology, climate, soils, sediment type, flow, as well as&nbsp;human activity. The complex interactions of the non-anthropogenic controlling factors have led to a wonderful&nbsp;diversity&nbsp;of river&nbsp;type&nbsp;throughout&nbsp;the British Isles. Sadly,&nbsp;almost all rivers in the UK have suffered significant and&nbsp;long-lasting&nbsp;modification&nbsp;by unsympathetic&nbsp;management,&nbsp;that has all but destroyed this variety, creating watercourses that are&nbsp;simplified conduits for water and sediment,&nbsp;designed primarily to drain the land and reduce flood risk.&nbsp;This volume&nbsp;aims to help reverse this,&nbsp;illustrating using over 200 images and descriptions,&nbsp;this variety&nbsp;of rivers in Britain, highlighting the many forms that temperate river systems take&nbsp;and providing an accessible summary of the underlying river science knowledge base.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p><i>A Field Guide to British Rivers</i>&nbsp;covers&nbsp;the full range of&nbsp;upland and lowland channel types and&nbsp;describes&nbsp;the full&nbsp;variety&nbsp;of substrate conditions from bedrock through boulder,&nbsp;cobble&nbsp;and gravel,&nbsp;to silt dominated systems. The authors describe examples gathered from their extensive research and practical experience working with rivers&nbsp;throughout mainland Britain&nbsp;and set those examples in&nbsp;their wider landscape&nbsp;context to&nbsp;exemplify&nbsp;the natural functioning of temperate river types.&nbsp; This book offers a practical and contextualised guide to&nbsp;contribute&nbsp;to&nbsp;efforts towards&nbsp;the sympathetic and sustainable&nbsp;restoration and re-naturalisation of degraded channels in the UK.&nbsp;Offering a unique viewpoint of both the underpinning&nbsp;science and&nbsp;the&nbsp;practicalities of river management,&nbsp;A Field Guide to British Rivers&nbsp;is an essential a stand-alone guide for anyone involved in river restoration and management&nbsp;as well as for those simply interested in rivers in general.&nbsp;</p> <p>Written as a field guide to&nbsp;demonstrate&nbsp;practical examples of river types, and to highlight the pressures they experience and their&nbsp;often-parlous&nbsp;condition, this book is intended to better inform both river management approaches and&nbsp;the&nbsp;policy necessary to achieve this. Fundamentally,&nbsp;the authors&nbsp;seek to demonstrate how the hydrological, geomorphological, and ecological functions of rivers&nbsp;and their&nbsp;catchments&nbsp;are inexorably intertwined, and together&nbsp;how they&nbsp;generate and maintain&nbsp;rivers as&nbsp;dynamic&nbsp;entities.&nbsp;</p>