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Environmental and Engineering Geoscience

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River Variability and Complexity

(Stanley Schumm)

¹ Department of Geological Sciences, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

River Variability and Complexity is an attempt by Stanley "Stan" Schumm to capitalize on his broad experience with alluvial rivers to sternly warn against overlooking the inherent heterogeneity of these rivers. No pretense is made concerning novelty; Schumm openly declares that the book draws on existing literature to illustrate "downstream variability in rivers". Theory is avoided in favor of case studies concerning the effect of river change and diversity. Alluvial rivers from throughout the world are discussed but not compared. Instead, discussions focus on river anomalies arising with individual systems. This review addresses primarily the potential applications, depth, and troublesome shortcomings of the new book.

A comprehensive, scholarly summary of natural phenomena contributing to anomalous river behavior is timely. Natural rivers are rapidly becoming scarce, and the discipline of river restoration is growing by leaps and bounds. River managers are in constant need of explanatory or cautionary information related to the ever-changing character of rivers. Simultaneously, design failures plague first-generation, river restoration projects, which is understandable given the intricacies of natural systems. Training river restorers in complexity will, presumably, minimize avoidable design failures.

Schumm approaches his objective of illustrating and cautioning about river variability by breaking the subject into five parts. The core material is separated into four parts, each of which examines a particular type of river control: upstream, fixed local, variable local, and downstream. This material is preceded by a brief review of river classifications and other pertinent facts. Schumm ends the book with a general discussion of our relationship with rivers and a final chapter dedicated to a hypothesis regarding how . . . [Full Text of this Article]