Blog Posts

Surely the term 'river engineering' is an oxymoron? Apart from this example of nonsense being practiced on Poland using pubic money, there more absurd examples - the discharge of the SyrDarya into the Aral Sea is one,. With World Bank funds the Govt there has undertaken questionable measures to race the flow of the rivers to a specially enclosed part of the Aral Sea - the new water circulation (or non circulation) has left the 'lake' as a toxic pool. Significant efforts to try to get governments to adopt 'managed aquifer recharge' are being made by the International Association of Hydrogeologists. More is needed - much more - even in enlightened countries, 'river engineering' has got to be totally re configured into catchment management - thus widening the focus from the channel of the river to its whole catchment.