Key takeaways

At the beginning of the module six learning objectives were introduced, you can find them below. Go through the key takeaways and see if you have done or learned these elements correctly and feel that you have understood the core message of this module.

• To investigate a river (watershed) and a problem area (project level) by considering large spatial scales (source to sea) considering long temporal horizons;
• To describe a river (watershed) in terms of its geo-morphology;
• To observe the conflicts that arise between ‘what a river wants’ and ‘what humans want from the river’;
• To show the breadth of a river system from source to sea in an illustrative sketch;
• To analyse the hydraulic context of your river (watershed and problem area);
• To demonstrate our changing perspective on rivers.

In this module, we learned to view the river as an entity. We got introduced to the river as if it almost were a living being such as the Vjosa, which flowed freely through the Albanian landscape. However, it was also shown wat happens when a river is impeded, which brought us to the first lesson of this module: In river systems everything is connected. As a result impediments upstream have effects downstream, interventions in channels have effects on alluvial plains. In other words every action taken on the river, will spark a reaction later down the line.

If you we use this lesson and apply it to the relation between humans and rivers, we see that humans make use of the fertility the river provides. However, in doing so we are slowly chipping away the space for the river to flow. This increases the risk for the nearby living humans and their assets and creates a call for more protection. This brings us to the second lesson: There is a conflict between what rivers want and what humans want.