A ROLE FOR MRRC IN EXPANSION OF LARGE RIVER RESEARCH: LESSONS FROM OCEANOGRAPHY

Richard E. Sparks, University of Illinois, Illinois Water Resources Center, 
Urbana, IL 61801.

Compared to lakes, reservoirs, and streams, the structure and function of large 
floodplain rivers is relatively poorly understood because of the logistical 
difficulties of working on them.  The equipment and effort required to document 
the population size and dynamics of even a single group of organisms, such as 
fish, is many times greater in a large river than in a small stream or lake.  
Understanding the linkages between structure and function in these large, 
complex, and dynamic systems is even more challenging, and current conceptual 
models consequently remain largely untested.  Despite some early multi-
investigator, cooperative efforts on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers, 
and more recent contributions from the Long Term Resource Monitoring Program on 
the Upper Mississippi System, our ability to understand large rivers has lagged 
far behind our ability to alter them.  Now public interest in preserving and 
restoring large river systems worldwide is on the increase, stimulated by a new 
appreciation of the multiple values of these systems, an awareness of how few 
remain unaltered, and an understanding that the altered rivers of the world 
increasingly contribute to harmful algal blooms, hypoxic zones, and other 
undesirable changes in the oceans and coastal areas.  

A major investment in large river research is needed to support river 
restoration and conservation, comparable to the investment made in ocean 
sciences, first by the U.S. Office of Naval Research after World War II, then by 
the National Science Foundation (NSF), starting in a major way with the 
International Geophysical Year of 1957-1958, and continuing with the 
International Decade of Ocean Exploration (IDOE), which began in 1970.  The 
National Sea Grant College Program began about the same time, in 1967.  In his 
review of 50 years of ocean research, John Knauss attributed its current 
strength and vitality to two policies: (1) NSF support of ships at individual 
academic institutions starting in 1963 (the first ships specifically designed 
for ocean-going research), and (2) NSF development of a support structure that 
encouraged large, multi-investigator, multi-institutional programs.  An 
encouraging outcome of the second policy, that bodes well for a similar program 
on rivers, is that once started, the multi-investigator programs continued on 
long after their original funding ended. This happened because the participants 
overcame dangers and difficulties to do exciting science together, and developed 
a deeper understanding of their colleagues and of cooperative ways to achieve 
their own goals.  In contrast to the situation in ocean sciences, the scale of 
investment in large river research in the U.S. is much less, less even than in 
some countries with much smaller economies, and multi-investigator projects 
involving academic researchers are rare (Water Environment Research Foundation, 
Large Rivers Workshop, 2000).  The National Science Board identified large river 
research as an area needing enhancement in the current NSF environment portfolio 
in its recent report (NSB 2000: p. 44). 

The large river research community needs to foster a policy approach and level 
of investment appropriate to the size, importance, and complexity of the systems 
under investigation, similar to what our marine brethren did 50 years ago.  A 
logical first step would be to hold one or two workshops of river program 
directors, to develop and forward consensus recommendations on programs and 
investment needs to NSF, and to other federal agencies that support and utilize 
river research.  The Mississippi River Research Consortium might form a steering 
committee that would organize the first workshop.  

Keywords: large rivers, science policy, research, support, infrastructure