ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the practical aspects of urban aquatic habitat rehabilitation, with a special focus on rivers, and provides generalities and techniques for management of their hydrological dynamics and biotic structure. The new strategy of environmental management shifts attention from maintaining good water quality towards maintaining the ecosystem value as a whole and revealed the limitation of the earlier techniques. Ecosensitive measures for the environmental management of urban areas support river restoration remediation and rehabilitation, wherever conditions are favourable. They also recognize the role of river corridors in maintaining and enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services and improving human well-being. The chapter presents aspects that should be taken into consideration, from a technical point of view, by master plans for the regulation of hydrological dynamics and the physical structure of aquatic habitats. In order to achieve long-term success, the rehabilitation of urban river systems has to address both the symptoms and causes of ecological disturbances.
