This book offers a comprehensive overview of progress in the general area of fluvial remote sensing with a specific focus on its potential contribution to river management. The book highlights a range of challenging issues by considering a range of spatial and temporal scales with perspectives from a variety of disciplines. The book starts with an overview of the technical progress leading to new management applications for a range of field contexts and spatial scales. Topics include colour imagery, multi-spectral and hyper-spectral imagery, video, photogrammetry and LiDAR. The book then discusses management applications such as targeted, network scale, planning, land-use change modelling at catchment scales, characterisation of channel reaches (riparian vegetation, geomorphic features) in both spatial and temporal dimensions, fish habitat assessment, flow measurement, monitoring river restoration and maintenance and, the appraisal of human perceptions of riverscapes. Key Features: • A specific focus on management applications in a period of increasing demands on managers to characterize river features and their evolution at different spatial scales • An integration across all scales of imagery with a clear discussion of both ground based and airborne images • Includes a wide-range of environmental problems • Coverage of cutting-edge technology • Contributions from leading researchers in the field

This handbook describes the Long Term Resource Monitoring Program (LTRMP) General Wetland Vegetation Classification System developed as part of a multi-state and Federal partnership for the Upper Mississippi River System. This classification system consists of 31 general classes and has been used to create systemic land cover/land use maps throughout this diverse river system. In addition, it describes the evolution of the General Wetland Vegetation Classification System, discusses the process of creating a map, and describes each of the 31 general classes in detail. This handbook also acts as a pictorial guide to illustrate each of the general classes as they may appear in the field, as well as on color-infrared aerial photographs.

This document is a cooperative effort among fifteen Federal agencies and partners to produce a common reference on stream corridor restoration. It responds to a growing national and international interest in restoring stream corridors.

The Clean Water Act (CWA) requires that wetlands be protected from degradation because of their important ecological functions including maintenance of high water quality and provision of fish and wildlife habitat. However, this protection generally does not encompass riparian areasâ€"the lands bordering rivers and lakesâ€"even though they often provide the same functions as wetlands. Growing recognition of the similarities in wetland and riparian area functioning and the differences in their legal protection led the NRC in 1999 to undertake a study of riparian areas, which has culminated in Riparian Areas: Functioning and Strategies for Management. The report is intended to heighten awareness of riparian areas commensurate with their ecological and societal values. The primary conclusion is that, because riparian areas perform a disproportionate number of biological and physical functions on a unit area basis, restoration of riparian functions along America's waterbodies should be a national goal.