Framing resilience for river geomorphology: Reinventing the wheel?

Abstract

Resilience is a well‐used term in many disciplines, but inconsistently or little applied in river geomorphology and river science. Recent developments in ecosystem ecology conceptualize resilience as comprising system resistance to, and recovery from disturbance. The objectives of this paper are to consider how the concept of resilience in this bivariate form applies to river geomorphology and provide a framework for bridging the disciplines of ecology and geomorphology within the setting of river management, using principles of resilience. River geomorphology sets the physical template upon which lotic processes act, thus, understanding the resilience of this template is critical. The importance of consistency in defining the principles of resilience thinking within the context of river science and management is important especially when promoting ecosystem resilience as a river management goal. The application of resilience thinking with respect to river habitat is provided through a series of examples from Australian and New Zealand river systems. Aim How is the concept of resilience applied to river geomorphology, and what does a geomorphologically resilient river look like?

Rivers Try Harder. Reversed “Differential Erosion” as Geological Control of Flood in the Large Fluvial Systems in Poland

“…The pattern also controls on floodplain recovery after a disturbance because a river channel stays at the same location in the alluvial belt during thousands of flood events in the Holocene. The control of incision resistance combined with the ability of floodplain recovery create the resilience of the studied fluvial systems, as proposed by [94].…”

An index to assess the extent and success of river and floodplain restoration: Recognising dynamic response trajectories and applying a process‐based approach to managing river recovery

“…However, this restriction must be set against the probability of design exceedance during large floods. Permitted and/or controlled expansion of the river corridor by a proportion approximating or approaching the “expected” extent of the NCI will enhance system resilience (Fuller, Gilvear, Thoms, & Death, 2019), enabling the system to absorb perturbation without switching system state by catastrophic change. Over‐narrowed and rationalized rivers are vulnerable to catastrophic disturbance (cf.…”

Large rivers as complex adaptive ecosystems

“…It advocates an approach in which landscapes, ecosystems, economies, and societies are implicitly linked. Major themes in resilience research include complexity, scale, alternate stable states, systemic feedbacks, thresholds, and drivers of change, all of which have received explicit disciplinary attention in the study of large rivers (e.g., Habersack et al, 2014;Fuller, Gilvear, Thoms, & Death, 2019) and as a basis for managing coupled human-natural systems in the face of environmental change (e.g., Thoms, Piegay, & Parsons, 2018). Chaffin and Scown (2018) suggest resilience provides a heuristic framework to understand complex adaptive systems.…”