Redefining the concept of sustainable development

Abstract

This research redefines Sustainable Development into workable best practice for River Managers in the Environment Agency of England and Wales through: 1) The redefinition of sustainable development in a clear and simple form through practical management targets; 2) Translation into operational best practice and identification of local and national implications (with particular regard to Flood Defence); and, 3) Review of the institutional and infrastructural implications.

Section one of this research is a critique of what Sustainable Development aims to achieve. This section investigates the present theoretical debates and considers why the concept has not reached the success it aspired to at its inception in the mid-1980s. This debate is placed within the context of upland rural river corridor management in England and Wales. The Upper Wharfedale Best Practice Project is introduced as the case study by which the growth of the sustainable management philosophy and understanding may be developed. The Environment Agency (which has sustainable development as its principal aim) is identified as the mechanism by which a concept of Sustainable Management may be developed, with the objectives of: minimum intervention; let-erode; flooding; and, metastability.

Section two explores potential tools for the appraisal of Sustainable Management. It is suggested that many tools for pragmatising the concept are in existence in other disciplines but that this is not explicitly recognised in either the literature or by policy. This section follows the conceptual and absolute design of a tool which utilises existing databases for the assessment of the sustainability of upland rural river corridors in England and Wales.

Section three considers techniques which may be used to implement sustainable management.

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