Flooding and Management of Large Fluvial Lowlands A Global Environmental Perspective

Pressure on large fluvial lowlands has increased tremendously during the past twenty years because of flood control, urbanization, and increased dependence upon floodplains and deltas for food production. This book examines human impacts on lowland rivers, and discusses how these changes affect different types of riverine environments and flood processes. Surveying a global range of large rivers, it provides a primary focus on the lower Rhine River in the Netherlands and the Lower Mississippi River in Louisiana. A particular focus of the book is on geo-engineering, which is described in a straight-forward writing style that is accessible to a broad audience of advanced students, researchers, and practitioners in global environmental change, fluvial geomorphology and sedimentology, and flood and water management.

Part I. Setting the Stage: Context and Overview of the Issue: 1. The Vulnerability of Fluvial Lowlands to Management and Environmental Change; 2. Fluvial Framework: Hydrologic and Geomorphic Processes of Large Floodplains and Deltas; 3. Human Impacts to Lowland Rivers and Deltas; Part II. Unintended Consequences: The Legacy of Impacts Caused by Traditional Flood Control to Large Rivers and Deltas: 4. The Evolution of Flood Control Systems in Response to Extreme Events: Contrast and Comparison of the Lower Mississippi and Lower Rhine; 5. The Sequence of Channel Engineering and Fluvial Geomorphic Adjustment; 6. Embanked Floodplains: The Impact of Flood Control on Lowland River Valleys; 7. Managing Flood Basins in a Challenging Environment; Part III. Solutions and the Way Forward in an Era of Global Environmental Change: 8. Integrated Flood Management; 9. Into the Future with a View of the Past; Appendix A; Appendix B; References; Index.

Paul F. Hudson is Associate Professor of environmental physical geography at Leiden University in the Netherlands, where he relocated after serving for twelve years on the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin. His main scholarly interests involve the study of environmental change of large coastal plain rivers through the lens of physical geography, and in particular, geomorphology and hydrology. Hudson's research investigates flooding, soil erosion, river adjustment, sediment transport, and the management of floodplain environments. He has provided expert advice concerning environmental water resources across a range of governmental scales: community, state, and national, including the Dutch parliament.