Conserving rivers and sustaining livelihoods – the River Trusan project (Sarawak)
This project is funded by WWF and aims to implement green engineering approaches to help tackle river erosion and flooding problems in the Trusan catchment. The project is a partnership between local communities, WWF and scientists from the UoN Ecohydrology Lab, designed to promote the adoption of sustainable river and catchment management practices. The livelihoods of people living in the Upper Trusan catchment are almost entirely dependent on rice cultivation, but their land and crops are increasingly threatened by a combination of flooding and riverbank erosion. This project is using remote sensing and combination of earth observation and unmanned aerial vehicle surveys, coupled with field surveys and modelling studies, to assess the causes of change in the river's behaviour and the nature and magnitude of erosion. The first phase of the project involved assessment of changes in landcover and river geomorphic conditions which provided the basis for multi-scale management actions designed to reduce flooding and erosion risk. The actions are based on the adoption of green engineering and the concept of ‘freedom space’ for the river, embedded within a programme of community participation. These measures are currently being implemented, and the focus of the project is now on assessing their success in reducing erosion and flood risk. This project funds Leon Lip’s PhD.