Brian Richter of The Nature Conservancy and University of Virginia in Water Currents

'The Army Corps of Engineers is making floods' says Brian Richter. See full article on the National Geographic website.

It’s true.  I’ve seen them doing it.  They’ve been doing it for years.  And it’s a very good thing for fish, frogs, mussels, wetlands, and local communities that depend on the bounty of healthy river systems and estuaries for their livelihoods and economies.

As part of a decade-long partnership called the Sustainable Rivers Project, the Corps and The Nature Conservancy are collaborating in eight river basins across the U.S. to modify dam operations for the benefit of downstream river and estuary health.  In five of those basins – the Savannah River in Georgia and South Carolina, the Green River of Kentucky, the Bill Williams River of Arizona, the Big Cypress Bayou of Texas, and the Willamette River in Oregon – the Corps is releasing ‘designer floods’ from their dams.

You may be surprised to learn that floods can be good for people and nature.  That’s not what you hear from a media fixated on death and destruction — and to be sure, big floods like last year’s on the Mississippi provide plenty of those stories.

But river scientists hold a different – or at least a more balanced — perspective of floods.

In response to Pitt Review Recommendation 27, a report has been published with guidance on greater working with natural processes in flood and coastal erosion risk management.Go to:

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/planning/136425.aspx

Let us know your thoughts on the measures identified - are these appropriate?

The ABC (the Aussie version of the BBC) has created an online game where you're in charge of the whole catchment.

Play Catchment Detox to see if you successfully manage a river catchment and create a sustainable and thriving economy. You get to decide what activities you undertake - whether to plant crops, log forests, build factories or set up national parks. The aim is to avoid environmental problems and provide food and wealth for the population.

Eight kilometres of river restored, 4,000 homes protected from flood and two million tonnes of soil decontaminated

The work to complete many of the environmental improvements at the Olympic Park and secure a green legacy for future generations was completed today, the Environment Agency has announced.

Around 2.5 square kilometres of land, much of it polluted, has been cleaned-up – the equivalent of 297 football pitches. The colossal clean-up operation involved planting more than 300,000 wetland plants, 2,000 native trees and restoring eight kilometres of the River Lea.

The Environment Agency’s approach to regulating the process minimised the amount of contaminated soil leaving the Olympic Park. It helped the ODA with the clean-up of two million tonnes of soil meaning it could be kept on site for re-use, thereby reducing the amount that had to go to landfill by 80 per cent.