Introduction: Managing Rivers with Broad Historical Changes and Human Impacts

Growing concerns over global environmental change, water resources, river restoration, and sustainable river management are focusing attention on the human dimension of fl uvial systems. This GSA Special Paper presents a set of studies and interpretations of river-channel change that refl ect modern viewpoints of river management in the twenty-fi rst century. It seeks to bridge a rich body of literature borne of late-twentieth-century river studies based in classic concepts of fl uvial geomorphology with modern studies of river management and restoration, integrated watershed science, modern fl uvial geomorphology, and historical channel-change reconstructions. Collectively, the papers document or recognize extensive changes to fl uvial systems over a prolonged period, present analytical methods that can be used to examine and understand fl uvial systems, and examine or recommend policies for river management and restoration.