By 2015, an estimated 80% of the world's megacities will be located in fragile river deltas. “Ecosystem services”, the benefits that people derive from ecosystems, such as a river, include:

• flood protection;

• groundwater recharge;

• food production;

• recreation, and;

• quality of living environment.

 We assume that a sustainable future scenario for a river catchment includes  an optimal supply of the ecological services residents demand.

Some ideas for a framework for sustainable planning

The intensive exploitation of land resources close to rivers has progressively reduced the areas available to ecosystem services to narrow strips, which are often polluted and at significant flood risk. A better understanding of who  benefits from or is harmed by changes to the river catchment could help  planners develop sustainable, integrated strategies, and could also inform remedial policies and urban landscape designs to enhance the societal value of the river.

 Designing river cities discussions at the recent 15^th International RiverSymposium looked at issues in small rural towns to large global cities. Water sensitive urban design, while focussed on improving water flow and use, has added economics and social benefits, improving livability, biodiversity and cultural aspects of urban areas. Different tools and frameworks being adopted around the world have broad applicability for those finding their way on the river management or water sensitive City journey.

 Social science is playing a growing role in many river management projects and is being used to better understand and engage with the community and stakeholders and seeks to find solutions which benefit all users.

 In an increasingly urbanised world, river floodplains have become isolated from their rivers and we have become dependent on infrastructure (dams and levees) to control river flows. We have grown to love and appreciate our rivers but not if they show up uninvited in our living rooms and kitchens. Faced with a more variable climate and frequent floods, river city officials must plan to either give the river more room or engineer their way out of trouble.

 Some key messages that came from the Symposium include that we need to match the scale of the solutions with the scale of the problem. That the only way to achieve sustainability in a catchment is through a “whole of community” approach and that we need to accept that we live in an “altered” system and we need to gain a better understanding.

Greg Hales

November 2012