2-11-2009
Sustainable Riparian Zones. A Management Guide
Daniel Arizpe, Ana Mendes and João E. Rabaça
ISBN: 978-84-482-4967-0
 The publication "Sustainable Riparian Zones. A Management Guide" is a compilation of themes related with the ecology, restoration and assessment of riparian zones. This guide is intended as a practical tool that will be very useful for managers and those professionally engaged in river and riverside conservation and/or restoration. This book aims to give the reader an overall view of what these natural systems are and how they function. This volume can be approached either in order of chapters or by singling out individual chapters as the reader's own interests and needs dictate. It attempts to address most of the main subjects and aspects that affect the integrity of riparian ecosystems, always trying to take a broad view that will be applicable to the vast majority of cases. Nevertheless, a marked Mediterranean tendency is evident, owing to the origin of most of the authors and to the context in which it arose.
The first part defines basic concepts in the dynamics and morphology of riparian areas. The second part briefly presents the biotic elements in riparian systems. The groups have been divided into vegetation, fish, amphibians and reptiles, birds and mammals. The third part is a miscellany on the theme of different tools for assessing and studying riparian areas. Rather than the more descriptive viewpoint adopted in the first two parts, particularly the second, this part confronts the reader with the complexity of approaching, understanding and, above all, quantifying nature and its processes before tackling the difficult task of describing and explaining them. The fourth part describes the main elements in drawing up and carrying out an ecological restoration project with a multidisciplinary approach. It also deals with different techniques and machines used in channel and bank maintenance operations, as well as some soil bioengineering methods for stabilizing banks. The fifth and last part presents three ecological rehabilitation projects undertaken in the course of the RIPIDURABLE project and two other projects from elsewhere. The theoretical arguments discussed in the preceding chapters can be evaluated in these five examples of action on riparian systems in very diverse contexts.
pages 1 to 161 162 to 287 cover
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