‘Catchment Consciousness’ – Will Mantra, Metric or Mania Best Protect, Restore and Manage Habitats?

Abstract

This chapter explores the dilemmas facing those from the science, regulatory and activist communities who seek to deploy 'tools' to sustainably protect, restore and manage riverine habitats. It addresses particularly the growing sanctioned discourse that only an integrated catchment context can ensure sustainability and that policies which enshrine the 'ecosystems approach', such as the European Union (EU) Water Framework and Habitats Directives, will create a supportive regulatory framework. The search for 'tools' is challenging in physical habitat, particularly 'hydromorphology', and robust metrics must await a rapid increase in the purposeful collection of empirical data, driving river channel typologies. In parallel to the search for tools and for metrics of regulation the mantra of scientific guidance faces some necessary introspection particularly in the face of the mania for opportunistic, community-driven improvements to riverine integrity (however defined). In practice, all three communities need fruitful lines of communication if the catchment context and ecosystems approach are not to prove inapplicable.