Floodplain Management

On one hand, we adhere to a romantic vision of rivers essentially natural in character; rivers embody aesthetic ideals of nature and wilderness; rivers have provided a stage for exploration, pioneered settlement and the advance of civilization; rivers give identity and sense of place to hundreds of communities. However, we have also exploited the short-term economic values of rivers as conduits for waste, as sites of cheap, easily developed floodplain land, or of investment in rapidly appreciating riverfront view property, while tending to discount long-term or externalized costs associated with flood hazards, erosion, pollution, and habitat destruction. Our challenge is to understand and work with the relationships between values that allow both short-term uses and environmental sustainability.

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