720 California Street, Suite 600

San Francisco, CA 94108

www.pwa-ltd.com

RIVER ENGINEERING VERSUS RIVER RESTORATION

Philip B. Williams, Ph.D., P.E., Eur.Ing.

A key note speech given at the ASCE Wetlands Engineering & River Restoration Conference 2001
Reno, Nevada
August 28, 2001

INTRODUCTION

The explosion of interest in river restoration that has occurred in the last decade has come about because

there has been a fundamental change in the way society values its rivers and watersheds. A new societal

demand for managing and restoring rivers to sustain ecologic and environmental benefits has qualified

our earlier support for the economic utilitarian exploitation of a river’s resources. This shift poses an

unprecedented challenge –and opportunity –to both civil engineers and public works agencies that have

previously been given responsibility and until now have assumed the role of de facto river managers.

I believe that we, the engineering profession, will not be successful in achieving society’s goals for

restoring rivers until we have reconciled the conflict between two philosophies or paradigms: that of river

engineering, and that of river management.

River engineers who were trained to facilitate exploitation of a river’s resources are now being asked to

restore them, but are not equipped with the tools, concepts, or institutional infrastructure to play this role

effectively. We are stuck between two paradigms.

C:\JeffBlank\PWAWEB\WHOLEWEB\PhilPresentation\Revisions\ASCE.doc (MSWord) 9/6/01

My talk will explore the context and consequences of the river engineering paradigm, the new river

management paradigm, explain how conflict between them is impeding restoration and how we might

overcome this conflict.

THE RIVER ENGINEERING PARADIGM

The Industrial Revolution brought not only technological advances but unleashed the power of an idea

that nature could be conquered and its resources utilized and exploited for the benefit of humanity. A

new profession was required to achieve this –civil engineering. The founding statement of the institute of

civil engineers in 1830 was “to harness the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience

of man”.

Engineers such as General Humphries [Figure 1], architect of the plan to embank the Mississippi river,

were the heroes of the Industrial Revolution.

River engineering was seen idealistically as a key

instrument and a necessary precursor of economic

development and reached ts height of popularity in the

TVA dams of the New Deal [Figure 2].

Figure 1.
 Figure 2.

River engineers used the new discoveries of science to developed new methods to control, divert,

channelize or dam rivers in order to utilize floodplains, prevent floods, irrigate fields, generate power or

improve navigation.

Our training was derived from the science of fluid mechanics tempered with practical experience in the

hydraulics of irrigation, drainage and shipping channels. Inevitably when we turned our attention to

natural rivers we viewed them as disorganized systems that needed simplifying to replicate the channels

we had studied. An example of this legacy is the ubiquitous use of Manning’s equation to define river

hydraulics –without understanding its historical context and derivation from the experience of land

drainage in Ireland. [Figure 3]

 Figure 3.

To support this new applied science the societal infrastructure required for its implementation was created

largely in the 19th century. New institutions were invented--including public works agencies, new

university departments, and new legal constructs. Over the last century these institutions have played the

dominant role in determining the education, expertise, and attitudes of the men who made decisions

affecting rivers world-wide.

The main task engineers were asked to address was how to design and construct river engineering works

in a sound cost effective manner to achieve the exploitation of a river’s resources. These structural works

were seen as solutions in themselves–not as part of a management system.

Engineers were not asked to be river or watershed managers, nor were they asked to consider the

ecologic, or even the long-term consequences of their actions. Nevertheless, for at least the last 150 years

we engineers have sought and been given authority to take actions drastically affecting all aspects of a

river system. We have had the authority but not the responsibility of river managers.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF RIVER ENGINEERING

Within the last century and particularly in the last 40 years, most of the world’s rivers have been

transformed by river engineering works. An example is what happened to the Sacramento River. Even as

late as the 1930s this is what large parts of the river looked like [Figure 4]. After the big multipurpose

dams and the levees this view is more typical [Figure 5]. The change in habitats was devastating. Figure

6 shows that the area of floodplain wetlands in the Sacramento Valley has been reduced to a few percent.

Figure 4.
 Figure 5.

Figure 6. (Photo: The Sierra to the Sea)

Increasingly, scientific evidence is demonstrating that major river engineering works have been a main

cause of environmental degradation of river and estuarine ecosystems, and a significant factor in the loss

of global biodiversity.
The regulation of river flows, the isolation of floodplains from their river channel, the interruption of

sediment flows and the elimination of riparian corridors has not only led to ecologic degradation but the

loss of important economic resources, such as commercial fisheries [Figure 7].

Figure 7.

Here you see the decline in the salmon fishery of the Sacramento River in the era of big water projects.

We now realize these changes have also resulted in unanticipated increasing natural hazards losses as we

start to understand how flood control stimulates inappropriate land use, as shown here in the town of

Olivehurst [Figure 8] inundated from a levee failure on the Yuba River in the 1986 flood. The cumulative

effect of the failure of flood control as a substitute for an integrated flood hazard reduction strategy is

shown in the escalation of national flood losses [Figure 9].

Figure 8

Figure 9.
In the U.S. in the 1960s environmental activists started challenging traditional river engineering projects

on their economics and rationale, not just their environmental costs. River engineers began increasingly to

be viewed as villains, not heroes [Figure 10].

Figure 10.

This challenge by environmental advocates was increasingly persuasive because it relied on evidence

from two bodies of science that had been excluded from standard river engineering practice and were

outside the typical training of an engineer. These were: fluvial geomorphology, the science of the form

and evolution of rivers that matured in the 1960s--in almost complete isolation from hydraulics

engineering--and the science of ecology that also started to develop rapidly in the 1960s.
By the 1990s, aided by increasing taxpayer skepticism over the huge cost of river engineering works,

environmentalists were becoming successful in halting traditional river engineering projects and seeking

remedies for past environmental damage. This in turn stimulated a rethinking of the relationship between

communities and their rivers.

THE EVOLVING RIVER MANAGEMENT PARADIGM

The increasing importance of river restoration has presented a new challenge to river managers: to

develop a rigorous coherent methodology that would guide appropriate cost effective restoration actions

for recovery of environmental values--one of the key goals of river management.

Restoration science is still in its infancy and restoration practice largely untested –with few major

initiatives that have been implemented. Nevertheless a consensus has emerged on what this methodology

should be.

There are three important concepts underlying this methodology that are not reflected in the river

engineering paradigm.

First, it is founded on a concept of physical and ecologic integrity that is intrinsic to a river ecosystem. I

refer to this as the ‘living river’ concept [Figure 11].

Figure 11.

Succinctly stated, it is the idea that a river is a dynamic evolving system; that a river’s form is an

expression of its watershed, climatology and geomorphic history; that rivers have an inherent tendency to

recreate that form, and that the rivers ecology has adapted to and takes advantage of both the form of the

river and the physical processes that sustains that form.

Our need to take into account this inherent form and self correcting tendency is vividly illustrated by the

response of the Walla Walla River to channelization in the 1963 flood [Figure 12]
Figure 12.

Second, river restoration is an integral part of resource management. Management requires a

management system that has clear measurable objectives. River management is multi-objective, has a

long term commitment, is accountable, draws on interdisciplinary expertise, has at its disposal a

continuum of management interventions from minimal maintenance to massive river engineering works,

and is adaptive through monitoring its performance. In addition river management is concerned with a

range of spatial and temporal scales, from the watershed to the coastal ocean, from the immediate

emergency action to the needs of future generations.

Because it addresses sustainable long-term management the river management paradigm can anticipate

and plan for the geomorphic and ecologic response to human interventions that take many decades to take

effect. We now recognize we are no longer 19th century pioneers who can exploit our rivers and then

move on, but are here for the long term.

 Third, this methodology is aimed at restoring ecologic processes and habitat rather than restoring

populations of single species.

Increasing scientific evidence indicates that the preferred way to restore the river environment is not to re-

engineer it but to encourage the river to restore itself through natural processes. This ‘self healing’ is best

done by removing or reducing human interventions, particularly those implemented by river engineers of

earlier generations. For example as was done by the breaching of levees on the Cosumnes River to

restore natural floodplain processes [Figure 13].

Figure 13.

Nationwide there are now increasingly ambitious proposals to restore river flows, setback flood control

levees, or remove dams to restore fisheries such as has already been done in France with demolition of

obsolete dams in the Loire Valley, France, in 1998 [Figure 14].

Figure 14. (Photo: European Rivers Network)

While some elements of the new paradigm have become accepted, we have not acknowledged that they

have created contradictions that result in a bias against implementing effective restoration.

STUCK BETWEEN TWO PARADIGMS: THE BIAS AGAINST EFFECTIVE RESTORATION

At the beginning of the 21st century we are stalled by the conflict between the river engineering and the

river management paradigms. We need to be clear what the differences are between these paradigms

[Figure 15]:
 S tu ck b e tw e e n tw o p a ra d ig m s
R IV E R E N G IN E E R IN G
-S ingle purpose
-E ngineering expertise
-C onstruction focus
-R each scale
-H y draulics tim e scale
-M onitoring externalized
-L im ited accountability
-M aintenance divorced
from design
R iver E ngineering versus R iver R estoration
R IV E R M A N A G E M E N T
-M ulti-objective
-Interdisciplinary
-C ontinuum of interventions
-W atershed scale
-G eom orphic tim e scale
-M onitoring internalized
-L ong term com m itm ent
-M aintenance is m anagem ent
activity

Figure 15.

Wherever river restoration is a goal of river management, it is the crux of this conflict.

I have identified the following consequences that bias us against implementing effective restoration

Over-engineered restoration

Many river engineers and some agencies are responding to the new paradigm as if river engineering was

itself a form of river management, rather than one tool in a spectrum of management interventions. This

mistakenly leads them to advocate ‘structural’ engineered river restoration when less expensive and more

effective management options exist. An example shown here are the massive siphons constricted over the

Rhine River levees to emulate the role of natural floodplains in storing flood peaks [Figure 16].
Figure 16.

A double standard of accountability

Because river engineering has not been conducted as part of a management system, it has never been held

accountable for its performance in the way that river restoration actions now are.

To make way for the new paradigm, we have to understand clearly what is wrong with the old one.

We still do not know how effective river engineering projects have been in fulfilling their promises to

society and what the true long- term costs are.

No comprehensive independent audit of our massive investment in river engineering has ever been carried

out.
This failure to learn from experience has created a double standard of accountability that biases us

towards preserving and maintaining environmentally destructive river engineering works, frustrating

opportunities for river restoration.

Inappropriate management objectives

Because river engineering concepts have dominated historically, river management objectives are miscast

in the old terminology. For example, we know the societal goal is not to control floods but to reduce flood

hazards and that floodplain restoration might achieve this more effectively than higher flood walls. But

emergency flood control actions, such as shown here on the Mississippi River in the flood of 1993

[Figure 17], are too often unquestioned even though they often foreclose opportunities for more effective

flood hazard management and habitat restoration.

Figure 17.
Reductionist solutions favored

In many instances restoration actions can result in cumulative benefits such as the example of the

restoring floodplains for both ecologic restoration and reduction of flood hazards. These are frequently

not recognized from the perspective of river engineering that usually considers individual problems in

isolation rather than their interrelationship at the watershed scale. This is captured in this cartoon entitled

‘an engineers view of the river basin–a series of hydraulic problems [Figure 18].

Figure 18.
Flawed design procedures undercut restoration rationale

We now know many instances where river engineering design procedures are flawed or out of date but

have persisted as standard design practice because there has been so little interest in monitoring

performance. This can perpetuate a structural intervention where multi-objective restoration solutions

may be more effective.

For example, the experience of channelization projects like Corte Madera Creek [Figure 19], a concrete

flood control channel designed to convey the 200-year flood assuming clear water hydraulics based on

Manning’s equation. Figure 20 shows what happened in the 1986 flood –a 6-year event that,

unremarkably, mobilized enough bed load to significantly increase flow resistance. Such experiences still

has not altered design procedures in many flood control agencies.

Figure 19.
Figure 20.

Engineering methodologies negate restoration benefits

Some river engineering methodologies accepted as standard practice are biased against recognizing

restoration benefits. A good example is the standard use of the classic steady state HECRAS model still

mainly used to define flood hazards [Figure 21].

 Figure 21.

This model ignores–and hence considers worthless–the beneficial effect of floodwater storage in upstream

floodplains.

Management costs skewed against restoration

Long term maintenance, life cycle and remedial costs are usually underestimated, externalized or not

recognized in river engineering projects but are internalized in river management solutions. Life cycle

and the costs of decommissioning are almost never considered in river engineering design.
Too often we see scenes like this where unachievable prescriptive maintenance is imposed on a river

manager, a result of maintenance being considered in isolation from hydraulic design. Too often in river

engineering maintenance is a problem relegated to future generations to deal with.

Figure 22. (Photo: Taming the Flood, Jeremy Purseglove)

Bias against complexity, variability, and flexibility

River engineering actions that favor simplification and predictability are considered ‘good’ and more

likely to be approved than an ecologic restoration program that restores complexity and values variability.

This is a result of our engineering culture (Figure 23] where deterministic solutions are favored and

benefit cost ratios calculated to less than 1%.

 Figure 23.

Misdirected research agendas

Research agendas dictated by river engineering priorities have been slow to focus on new key restoration

questions one example: 15 years ago when we first started designing multi-objective flood channels we

needed to know the effect of vegetation on flow resistance. We found the best research review coming

not from the engineering labs but from freshwater biologists interested in challenging ecologically

disruptive channel maintenance practices [Figure 24].

 Figure 24.

Obsolete teaching curricula

University teaching is still focused on the computer and flume not on understanding real rivers.

Hydraulics engineers are still graduated without ever seeing a river in flood.
The bias for the status quo and against change

We have been bequeathed a legacy of ageing river engineering projects whose objectives were

simplistically defined, whose effectiveness are uncertain and which were planned in ignorance of their

long term physical and environmental impacts on the river system.

We know that many of these projects constitute major interventions in the river system whose persistence

or continued operation can result in continued massive ecologic decline. For example:

every time we decide to repair an eroding levee we are preventing the river from reestablishing a

healthy floodplain;

every time we decide to store all flood flows, large or small, in reservoirs we eliminate flow

pulses essential for ecologic processes. The drastic effect this has can be seen in this post project

comparison of flood frequency below Oroville Dam, California [Figure 25]. The 2-year flood has

been reduced by an order of magnitude but the reduction in larger damaging flows has been

proportionately less.

Institutional inertia

Technical challenges pall in the face of a larger problem; overcoming the institutional and conceptual

legacy of the era of resource exploitation. One of the biggest obstacles to implementing river restoration

is the lack of appropriate executive agencies that have the interdisciplinary expertise, mission and

resources.
 Figure 25.

The new river management paradigm is being imposed on the technological infrastructure developed to

sustain the old river engineering paradigm it is replacing. Flood control agencies established 100 years

ago to build levees are now being asked to protect endangered species; a symptom of this institutional

inertia is that federal funding is available for constructing river restoration projects but very little money

is available for land acquisition or maintenance and almost none for monitoring.

In recent years there have been a variety of imperfect responses to this problem. Some public works

agencies like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have expanded their mission to encompass

environmental restoration and watershed planning, in other instances ad-hoc temporary groups of single

purpose resource management agencies are formed like the Cal-Fed Bay-Delta program in California.

Elsewhere, lay ‘stakeholder’ led watershed management planning groups are attempting to fill the

vacuum.
TOWARDS EFFECTIVE RIVER MANAGEMENT

We now have the opportunity to create a synthesis of ideas that uses the best of our past river engineering

experience in the service of new societal goals. To initiate this, we need to take the following seven

actions.

1. Learn from experience.

We need to examine the impacts, performance and effectiveness of not just restoration projects but

past engineering interventions. This means analyzing the long term, large scale, ecologic and

geomorphic changes that have been and will be caused by river engineering projects. It means

identifying their societal objectives and determining whether these objectives have been met. It also

means revising engineering design procedures and methodologies in the light of this new experience.

2. Articulate a vision for river management.

River restoration encompasses those actions required to change a river from its present degraded state

to one whose management better achieves multiple societal objectives. We can do this best if we

have a consensus of what this end point looks like. An example where this has been done well is the

community led initiative that resulted in the Napa flood management plan, now being implemented

by the U.S. Corps of Engineers [Figure 26].

Figure 26.

3. Develop proactive river management plans

Implementing the river management vision usually requires incremental steps taken opportunistically

as funding or land becomes available –often in the wake of floods. To realize the cumulative

integrative benefits over longer time periods we need proactive templates to guide this action. A

model for such a template is the river management strategy being developed by U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service to guide appropriate emergency flood response actions after future floods [Figure

27].

4. Apply adaptive management to river engineering projects.

This means monitor and periodically review whether their performance or persistence meets multi-

objective river management goals. We need to understand what the costs and benefits are of

maintaining the no-action alternative, and this should be determined in the same way as for a river
restoration option. The FERC re-licensing process for private hydro dams gives an idea of what can

be accomplished with periodic review.

Figure 27.

5. Update research and teaching agendas.

Researchers need to address not only important technical questions such as what really is the affect of

riparian trees on channel conveyance, but examine the broader interdisciplinary questions as well,

such as whether flood control dams really reduce flood damages.

Consulting firms engaged in river management need graduates who have interdisciplinary and

systems training. It is rare to find someone with a degree in hydraulics engineering and fisheries

biology for example.

6. Redesign river management agencies

We need government agencies that have the mission, mandate, resources authorities and skills to

effectively manage rivers. This means rethinking the role of flood control agencies as well as natural

resource management agencies. For example, the Santa Clara Valley Water District is currently

attempting to transform itself from a flood control and water supply agency to a watershed

stewardship agency.

7. Rethink the role and practice of river managers

We need to understand the interaction of ecologic and physical processes to develop informed river

management solutions. This will require a full integration of the sciences of fluvial geomorphology,

fluid mechanics and sediment hydraulics as river science. In the 1960s this was the intent of

Professor Luna Leopold in establishing the professional category of ‘hydrologist’ at USGS.

An example of the new kind of challenge and achievement of the river manager is this log jam on the

Stillaguamish River, WA [Figure 28]. What is shown here is actually an engineered structure that

has been designed to take advantage of natural processes to recreate fish habitat in a degraded river.

We need to establish a new professional practice that incorporates the best of the established

pragmatic professional traditions of the engineer including qualities such as accountability, liability,

quality control, rigorous design standards and professional training; and redirects it towards restoring

and sustaining our river systems for future generations.

 Figure 28.

If river restoration is seen only through the lens of the past, as a new form of river engineering; we are

unlikely to achieve success. Instead we need to create a new profession of river manager to meet the 21st

century demands for river restoration–just as river engineering was created to meet the needs of the

industrial revolution.