Restoring Streams in Cities: A Guide for Planners, Policymakers, and Citizens

Conventional engineering solutions to problems of flooding and erosion are extremely destructive to natural environments. Restoring Streams in Cities presents viable alternatives to traditional practices that can be used both to repair existing ecological damage and to prevent such damage from happening.

Ann L. Riley describes an interdisciplinary approach to stream management that does not attempt to "control" streams, but rather considers the stream as a feature in the urban environment. She presents a logical sequence of land-use planning, site design, and watershed restoration measures along with stream channel modifications and floodproofing strategies that can be used in place of destructive and expensive public works projects. She features examples of effective and environmentally sensitive bank stabilization and flood damage reduction projects, with information on both the planning processes and end results. Chapters provide:

• background needed to make intelligent choices, ask necessary questions, and hire the right professional help
• history of urban stream management and restoration
• information on federal programs, technical assistance and funding opportunities
• in-depth guidance on implementing projects: collecting watershed and stream channel data, installing revegetation projects, protecting buildings from overbank stream flows

Profusely illustrated and including more than 100 photos, Restoring Streams in Cities includes detailed information on all relevant components of stream restoration projects, from historical background to hands-on techniques. It represents the first comprehensive volume aimed at helping those involved with stream management in their community, and describes a wealth of options for the treatment of urban streams that will be useful to concerned citizens and professional engineers alike.

On page 128, there is a diagram showing "factors influencing stream erosion and sedimentation" which appears to be attributed to Mr. E W Lane in an American Society of Civil Engineers professional journal dated 1955. However, a closer inspection of this particular journal article by interested readers should reveal to them that the figure shown in Riley's book in reality doesn't actually appear in the journal itself; although the diagram's concepts themselves are given in the journal article. So the question remains, WHO ACTUALLY DREW THE DIAGRAM in Riley's book and WHY WEREN'T THEY PROPERLY RECOGNIZED IN IT?

And HOW MANY OTHER MIS-LEADING OVERSIGHTS are possibly contained in the book?

From a hydraulic and hydrologic technical and design stand-point, this book appears weak and I feel that citation problems like I previously mentioned are inexcusable and not acceptable for a published book.

Thus my average rating of it.
February 05, 1999