Flooding and Management of Large Fluvial Lowlands
A Global Environmental Perspective

Examines interrelations between flood management, flooding, and environmental change, for advanced students, researchers, and practitioners.

Paul F. Hudson (Author)

9780521768603, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 November 2021

348 pages
28.6 x 22.1 x 2 cm, 1.17 kg

'Hudson provides a sweeping treatise on the human impacts to large fluvial lowlands, covering cases from the Rhine to the Mississippi. Given the increasing effects of development and environmental change on these hydrologic systems, there could not be a better time or author to thoroughly examine this topic. Hudson's accessible writing style and attention to both problems and management solutions is a key resource for both students and practitioners.' Sam Brody, Texas A&M University

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.

Subject Areas: Environmental monitoring [TQD], Environmental science, engineering & technology [TQ], Hydrology & the hydrosphere [RBK], Hydrobiology [PSP], Environmental factors [MBNH2]