Environmental infrastructure and practices designed to restore and protect aquatic systems are now mainstream. Yet many of these projects are failing to produce the biophysical outcomes that they are designed for because of poor maintenance. The success of restoration projects is just as much a consequence of how they are maintained, as it is how the project was initially designed and implemented. Successful maintenance relies on understanding the ecological and biological recovery trajectories of aquatic systems. Some interventions will require ongoing maintenance indefinitely, whereas others will reach a self-sustaining point where maintenance is no longer required. Different management arrangements are required to ensure the maintenance of different types of project. Those projects that involve high costs should be managed using more robust arrangements, such as legal regulation, compared to those projects that involve lower costs. This paper describes the maintenance required for common river restoration projects and outlines a classification of projects based on maintenance and recovery trajectories. It then considers the types of management arrangements required to ensure maintenance. Finally, these points are illustrated with 3 case studies of typical restoration actions (riparian stock exclusion, fish passage, and restoring large wood loads). Projects that require ongoing maintenance, particularly those that involve high costs, such as environmental flows, require strong management arrangements to ensure successful outcomes. Voluntary instruments are more appropriate for self-sustaining interventions. Regardless of the chosen management arrangements, monitoring and independent assessment are essential for successful maintenance.

Policy makers draw on behavioral research to design interventions that promote the voluntary adoption of environmental behavior in societies. Many environmental behaviors will only be effective if they are maintained over the long-term. In the context of climate change and concerns about future water security, behaviors that involve reducing energy consumption and improving water quality must be continued indefinitely to mitigate global warming and preserve scarce resources. Previous reviews of environmental behavior have focused exclusively on factors related to adoption. This review investigates the factors that influence both adoption and maintenance, and presents a classification of environmental behaviors in terms of the activities, costs, and effort required for both adoption and maintenance. Three categories of behavior are suggested. One-off behaviors involve performing an activity once, such as purchasing an energy efficient washing machine, or signing a petition. Continuous behaviors involve the performance of the same set of behaviors for adoption and for maintenance, such as curbside recycling. Dynamic behaviors involve the performance of different behaviors for adoption and maintenance, such as revegetation. Behaviors can also be classified into four categories related to cost and effort: those that involve little cost and effort for adoption and maintenance, those that involve moderate cost and effort for adoption and maintenance, those that involve a high cost or effort for adoption and less for maintenance, and those that involve less cost or effort for adoption and a higher amount for maintenance. In order to design interventions that last, policy makers should consider the factors that influence the maintenance as well as the adoption of environmental behaviors.

Governments often use voluntary agreements to encourage landholders to adopt environmental practices, such as excluding stock from grazing riverbanks. In Victoria, Australia, government agencies subsidize the adoption of these projects, while landholders are required to continue maintaining stock exclusion indefinitely. In the absence of further financial or legal enforcement, landholder compliance depends on the motivation and decision-making of individual landholders. Social beliefs about the responsibility of landholders to improve the condition of degraded riverine ecosystems, known as social norms, influence farmers to adopt new environmental practices. The influence of social norms on behaviour weakens when people perceived themselves to be constrained. From late 1996 to mid-2010 landholders in Victoria endured more than ten years of drought that has reduced productivity, and income. Drought conditions may influence whether landholders continue to exclude stock over the long-term, despite holding positive social norms. However, behaviour is influenced by perceptions of constraint; landholder perceptions may not reflect drought severity. Perceived drought affectedness may also be related to the amount of income obtained from farm activities. This study examined the relationship between social factors, (including injunctive and descriptive social norms, and symbolic and instrumental social beliefs, perceived drought affectedness, actual drought severity), and the percentage of overall income that landholders obtain from farm activities. A social survey, and assessment of river restoration projects, was conducted with 93 landholders in rural Victoria, Australia. We found that landholders who continue to graze riverbanks hold weaker social norms about excluding stock in drought conditions. Grazing behaviour was explained by social norms, and perceived drought affectedness together. Perceived drought affectedness was best explained by actual drought severity, but also by the amount of income obtained from farming activities, rather than either factor alone. Policy makers should consider using drought relief funding to subsidize the purchase of additional stock feed during droughts to encourage farmers to continue environmental stock exclusion, particularly when farmers rely on farm activities for most of their income.

Background The most immediate response of the research community to COVID-19 has been a focus on understanding the effects, treatment and prevention of infection. Of equal and ongoing importance is elucidating the impact of mitigation measures, such as lockdown, on the well-being of societies. Research about mental health and lockdown in the UK has predominately involved large surveys that are likely to encounter self-selection bias. Further, self-reporting does not constitute a clinical judgement. Aims To (a) compare the age, gender and ethnicity of patients experiencing mental health emergencies prior compared with during lockdown, (b) determine whether the nature of mental health emergencies has changed during compared with before lockdown, (c) explore the utility of emergency medical service data for identifying vulnerability to mental health emergencies in real time during a pandemic. Method A total of 32 401 clinical records of ambulance paramedics attending mental health emergencies in the East Midlands of the UK between 23 March and 31 July 2020 and the same period in 2019 were analysed using binary logistic regression. Results People of younger age, male gender and South Asian and Black ethnicity are particularly vulnerable to acute mental health conditions during lockdown. Patients with acute cases of anxiety have increased during lockdown whereas suicide and intentional drug overdose have decreased. Conclusions Self-reported data may underrepresent the true impact of lockdown on male mental health and ethnic minority groups. Emergency medical data can be used to identify vulnerable communities in the context of the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the current pandemic, as well as under more ordinary circumstances.

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