Rivers, sustainable development, and policies

Chapter 1 introduces the concepts proposed in the book and gives an overview of the remaining chapters. It first highlights the importance of rivers for the three dimensions of sustainable development, namely economic growth, social development, and environmental protection. The chapter next describes broadly two opposing approaches to rivers, Commercial and Ecological. The former is based on the premise that “Any river water that passes to the sea is a waste,” and encourages impounding and abstraction of river water for various commercial purposes. The later considers carrying precipitation water to the seas as the main function of rivers and discourages interventions that alter significantly volume and direction of river flows. Both Commercial and Ecological approaches have their corresponding frontal and lateral versions. The lateral version of the Commercial approach is the Cordon approach, according to which floodplains should be cordoned off from river channels through construction of embankments. By contrast, the lateral form of the Ecological approach is the Open approach, which advocates keeping floodplains open to river channels for the benefit of both floodplains and river channels.