Protecting the Rivers: promoting resilience-thinking for pollution management in rivers

Balancing current uses against rivers’ capacity to maintain or supply resources into the future poses management challenges, as the amount of change that rivers can accommodate seems to be rapidly diminishing. This loss of capacity becomes more apparent when it comes to processing chemical pollution. Pressures affecting rivers include pollution (chemicals, nutrients and sediments), physical modifications (hydromorphology), climate change, and abstraction.

Research needs to elucidate whether synergies between multiple pressures worsen impacts on freshwater environments. Investigations should also consider the influence of climate change on the hydrological cycle, particularly on water quantity, along with increasing abstraction demands. Such pressures also overlap with diffuse pollution and point source discharges to cause a cascade of impacts on freshwater quality and ecosystems. Hence, the aim of this project is to establish a community of practice (CoP) to promote resilience-thinking for pollution management in rivers.