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Monitoring the resilience of rivers as social-ecological systems: a paradigm shift for river assessment in the 21st Century
Citation:
Parsons, M., M. Thoms, AND J. Flotemersch. Monitoring the resilience of rivers as social-ecological systems: a paradigm shift for river assessment in the 21st Century. Chapter 10, River Research and Applications: Science and Applications for the 21st Century. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Indianapolis, IN, , 197-220, (2016).
Impact/Purpose:
We argue in this chapter that advancing national interests in river ecosystem sustainability in the 21st Century will require river assessment programs to pay greater attention to the linkages between social factors and the condition of biophysical elements of river ecosystems.
Description:
First, we briefly describe the development of the major, biophysically-focused river assessment and monitoring approaches over the last 50 years. We then assess the utility of biophysical parameters for assessing rivers as social-ecological systems. We then develop a framework describing how the social and ecological components of river ecosystems can be included in river assessment programs, based on principles of resilience thinking and strategic adaptive management.
