Ten reasons to set up sediment budgets for river management

ABSTRACT

Rivers are dynamical systems with alternating patterns of sedimentation and erosion. Both sedimentation and erosion may have negative consequences from a perspective of river management. A sediment budget is a most valuable tool for taking measures in river management that deal with sediment dynamics effectively. Drawing-up a sediment budget is time consuming and complicated, but very rewarding in that it strongly increases our understanding of the functional behaviour of a river system and the human impact thereon. The main goal of this article is to provide river managers with arguments in favour of sediment budget studies. This is done by illustrating the benefits of channel sediment budgets for river management using examples from the rivers Scheldt and Rhine. We present 10 reasons for drawing-up sediment budgets for river management: sediment budgets help to: (1) create order in the apparent chaos of data, (2) identify morphological problems, (3) find smart solutions to problems, (4) set research agendas and monitoring strategies, (5) optimize dredging and nourishment strategies, (6) coordinate river management on the basin scale, (7) assess consequences of human interventions, (8) improve numerical models, (9) explain river management to society and (10) train future generations of river managers.

KEYWORDS:

• Sediment budget
• river management
• research agenda
• erosion
• sedimentation
• navigation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.