『Abstract
Although the area of urban river sediment quality has received
increasing attention over the last 10 years, the presence of contaminated
sediments in urban rivers and the potential risk to public health
it poses has yet to be rigorously addressed within the urban river
restoration context. This is an issue of particular concern at
the current time, as the opening-up of urban rivers is being strongly
promoted by many legislative and non-legislative bodies as a multi-benefit
approach to tackling a range of urban challenges; from decreasing
the risk of flooding to increasing the quality-of-life in urbanised
areas. This paper brings together these two contrasting concepts;
urban rivers as pollutant sinks and sources (presentation of data
on urban river sediment quality) and urban rivers as sites of
flood alleviation, amenity, recreation and wildlife value (review
of the drivers and initiatives behind the increasing implementation
of urban river rehabilitation schemes). In light of this combined
assessment, the urgent need for a risk assessment of restored
urban river sites to establish whether the presence of contaminated
sediments poses a risk to public health is strongly recommended.
Should such a risk be demonstrated, a tiered approach to supporting
the identification and pro-active management of these risks is
proposed as a way to inform and enable, rather than to prevent,
the safe and appropriate use of the increasing number of urban
river restoration schemes being implemented.
Keywords: Recreation; Risk assessment; Sediment quality; Urban
river restoration』
1. Introduction
2. Drivers for change: the push to restore urban rivers and why
concern now?
3. Options for restoring rivers known to contain contaminated
sediments
3.1. Identification and mapping of pollutant ‘Hot Spots’
3.2. Source control
3.3. In situ measures
3.4. Public engagement with the issues
4. Conclusions and recommendations
Acknowledgements
References