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Official Journal of the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS)

Table 2 Geomorphic principles that underpin management practices that respect diversity (Truth 1)

From: Truths of the Riverscape: Moving beyond command-and-control to geomorphologically informed nature-based river management

Work with the river as it is, not theoretical or digital representations of a river divorced from place-based understandings

Geography and history matter. Theory is good, but reality is better

Open-ended and flexible practices identify and look after key values of each and every river

Some rivers are inherently messy (heterogeneous), others are not. Some rivers are leaky, others are not. Not all rivers have a channel

A nested hierarchical framework of understanding derives and applies appropriately contextualised, cross-scalar, catchment-specific knowledge

Know your catchment. The catchment is the fundamental geomorphic unit. Like the veins on a leaf, the catchment feeds the river. What happens upstream impacts downstream—it’s just a matter of time

Different types of river at the reach scale comprise differing assemblages of geomorphic units (also called hydromorphic or morphologic units)

Drainage network configuration and tributary-trunk stream interactions influence the pattern of geomorphic process zones, associated patterns of river types and (dis)connectivity relationships at the catchment scale

Listen to the river and learn from it. Catchment-specific understandings give due regard for diversity, variability, process, pattern and evolutionary traits