Sustainable Floodplains Through Large-Scale Reconnection to Rivers

Opperman, Jeffrey J.; Galloway, Gerald E.; Fargione, Joseph; Mount, Jeffrey F.; Richter, Brian; Secchi, Silvia

doi:10.1126/science.1178256

Cited by 333 publications

(217 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…However, if flooding does occur the consequences can be dramatic and can potentially lead to societal collapse. In some regions, such as in the Netherlands and California, societies have realized that continually raising levees is no longer sustainable and are gradually adopting an adaptive policy of giving some room back to the river [Vis et al, 2003;Opperman et al, 2009]. …”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Debates—Perspectives on socio‐hydrology: Capturing feedbacks between physical and social processes

Baldassarre

Viglione²,

Carr

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

381

369

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In flood risk assessment, there remains a lack of analytical frameworks capturing the dynamics emerging from two-way feedbacks between physical and social processes, such as adaptation and levee effect. The former, ''adaptation effect'', relates to the observation that the occurrence of more frequent flooding is often associated with decreasing vulnerability. The latter, ''levee effect'', relates to the observation that the non-occurrence of frequent flooding (possibly caused by flood protection structures, e.g. levees) is often associated to increasing vulnerability. As current analytical frameworks do not capture these dynamics, projections of future flood risk are not realistic. In this paper, we develop a new approach whereby the mutual interactions and continuous feedbacks between floods and societies are explicitly accounted for. Moreover, we show an application of this approach by using a socio-hydrological model to simulate the behavior of two main prototypes of societies: green societies, which cope with flooding by resettling out of flood-prone areas; and technological societies, which deal with flooding also by building levees or dikes. This application shows that the proposed approach is able to capture and explain the aforementioned dynamics (i.e. adaptation and levee effect) and therefore contribute to a better understanding of changes in flood risk, within an iterative process of theory development and empirical research.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Debates—Perspectives on socio‐hydrology: Capturing feedbacks between physical and social processes

Baldassarre

Viglione²,

Carr

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

381

369

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, in the case of flood risk management, whereas flood-control infrastructures such as levees and dams often degrade aquatic habitat by altering the natural river flow regime and cut off floodplains from rivers, preserving floodplains and/ or reconnecting them to rivers can instead provide flood management benefits while also conserving ecosystem values and functions (Ozment et al, 2015;Opperman et al, 2009). …”

Section: Smith R Wellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nature-based solutions to address global societal challenges

Cohen-Shacham¹,

Janzen²,

Maginnis³

et al. 2016

852

150

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“…Many stream restoration practices are considered for mitigating water quality impacts, including channel realignment, riparian planting, in-stream structure installation, and floodplain reconnection (Roni et al, 2002;Ensign and Doyle, 2005;Kaushal et al, 2008;Opperman et al, 2009;Hester and Gooseff, 2010;Mason et al, 2012;Azinheira et al, 2014;Johnson et al, 2015;Jones et al, 2015). Yet water quality improvement is a relatively new goal compared to more traditional objectives such as bank stabilization, ecosystem enhancement or riparian zone management (Bernhardt et al, 2005), and little guidance is available to guide stream restoration design for purposes of improving N removal from the channel (Craig et al, 2008;Veraart et al, 2014;Johnson et al, 2015).…”

Section: Excess Nitrogen and Stream Restorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of inset floodplains and hyporheic exchange induced by in-stream structures on nitrate removal in a headwater stream

Hester

Hammond

Scott

2016

Ecological Engineering

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a b s t r a c tStream restoration efforts in the United States are increasingly aimed towards water quality improvement, yet little process-based guidance exists to compare pollutant removals from different restoration techniques for variable site conditions. Excess nitrate (NO 3 − ) is a frequent pollutant of concern due to eutrophication in downstream waterbodies such as the Chesapeake Bay. We used MIKE SHE to simulate hydraulics and NO 3 − removal in a 90 m restored reach of Stroubles Creek, a second-order stream in Blacksburg, Virginia. Site specific geomorphic, hydrologic, and hydraulic data were used to calibrate the model. We evaluated in-stream structures that induce hyporheic zone denitrification during baseflow and inset floodplains that remove NO 3 − during storm flows. We varied hydraulic conditions (winter baseflow, summer baseflow, storm flow), biogeochemical parameters (literature hyporheic zone denitrification rates and newly available inset floodplain removal rates) and boundary conditions (upstream NO 3 − concentration), sediment conditions (hydraulic conductivity), and stream restoration design parameters (inset floodplain length). Our results indicate that NO 3 − removal rates within the 90 m reach were minimal. Structure-induced hyporheic zone denitrification did not exceed 3.1% of mass flowing in from the upstream channel, was achieved only during favorable background groundwater hydraulic conditions (i.e. summer baseflow), and was transport-limited such that non-trivial removal rates were achieved only when the streambed hydraulic conductivity (K) was at least 10 −4 m/s. Inset floodplain nitrogen removal was limited by floodplain residence time and NO 3 − removal rate, and did not exceed 1% of inflowing mass. Summing these removals for both restoration practices over the course of the year based on the frequency of storm and summer baseflow conditions yielded ∼2.1% annual removal. Achieving 30% NO 3 − removal required increasing the length of stream reach restored to 0.9 km-819 km (depending on hydraulic conductivity) and 3.8-46 km (depending on inset floodplain length and nitrogen removal rate) for in-stream structures during baseflow and inset floodplains during storm flow, respectively. In one of the first comparisons of process-based modeling to the Chesapeake Bay Program stream restoration guidance, we found that the guidance overestimated hyporheic NO 3 − removal for our modeled reach, but correctly estimated inset floodplain removal. Overall, our results indicate that in-stream structures and inset floodplains can improve water quality, but overall required level of effort may be high to achieve desired results.

show abstract

Sustainable Floodplains Through Large-Scale Reconnection to Rivers

Abstract: If riverside levees are strategically removed or repositioned, the result can be reduced flood risk and increased goods and services.

Cited by 333 publications

References 11 publications

Debates—Perspectives on socio‐hydrology: Capturing feedbacks between physical and social processes

Debates—Perspectives on socio‐hydrology: Capturing feedbacks between physical and social processes

Nature-based solutions to address global societal challenges

Effects of inset floodplains and hyporheic exchange induced by in-stream structures on nitrate removal in a headwater stream

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