... of fluvial systems; to highlight the sensitivity of fluvial systems to disturbances and change; and to demonstrate the importance of promoting ecologically acceptable engineering through a trans-disciplinary integrated approach to river management (Gilvear, 1997). In the past, river management has been a contentious environmental issue concerned with conflicts such as those between flood mitigation or irrigation development and habitat preservation. Attitude towards physical management of fluvial systems and of hazards such as flooding tended to be one of dominating and controlling nature (Hooke, 1999), compounded by an attitude that all economic assets needed to be protected. River engineering involved the use of straight channels, impoundments, embankments and a range of training structures to control rivers and their flow (Gilvear, 1997). Thus until around the early 1990s management policies centred on an accelerating rate of control and protection of both coasts and rivers in England and Wales. There have, however, been ...

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