On November 16, 2021, Cambridge University Press released the hard-cover version of Sustainability of Engineered Rivers in Arid Lands: Challenge and Response (SERIDAS). The book presents the work of a 30-member team of researchers from different continents who studied the future sustainability of ten heavily engineered rivers from around the world: Murray-Darling in Australia, the Yellow, Tigris, and Euphrates in Asia, the Nile in Africa, the Jucar in Europe, the Limari and São Francisco in South America, and the Rio Grande and Colorado in North America.
A group of river experts projected future water supply and demand in the above mentioned heavily engineered rivers. A second group of team members, including HARC researcher staff, advised the river experts on how to deal with future risks, such as impacts of climate change, increasing water demand, reservoir sedimentation, and declining environmental flows.
The book is available to order online via Amazon.
Modern river engineering is just a century old. It started in two rivers: Nile and Rio Grande. British engineers closed the first Aswan Dam in 1902. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers closed Elephant Dam, an hour’s drive north of El Paso, Texas, in 1916.
Engineered rivers are the lifeblood of irrigated agriculture, produce electricity, and supply water for industry and cities in the river basins. By now most large rivers in the world have been engineered—equipped with multiple dams, bypass canals, and distribution channels. River engineering brings large benefits to farmers and cities.
It also creates risks. In this project we study the most important ones in order to find out how the rivers will do in 2040 and 2060.
We look at both physical and social drivers of change: climate change/variation, reservoir sedimentation, surface-to-groundwater connection, and environmental flow on nature’s side; population and land use changes, as well as options for more efficient water use and better policies, on the social side.
SERIDAS stands for Sustainability of Engineered Rivers in Arid Lands. We assembled a team of river experts to project water supply and demand for a group of heavily engineered rivers worldwide. We also invited a second group of team members who can advise the river experts on how to deal with future risks.
Our rivers share these characteristics:
Beginning a hundred years ago, and accelerating during the second half of the last century, SERIDAS rivers were heavily engineered. The ancient river civilizations lasted for millennia.
What are the prospects for today’s river cultures that depend on modern engineering?
To cover a variety of cases, SERIDAS includes:
As the project unfolds we will look for similarities and differences between the rivers and their basins. We are particularly interested to find out how river stakeholders and managers are preparing for the future. Whether different management regimes—multi-state, international or regional—make a difference in being pro-active.
