They have introduced the concept “working rivers” (Whittington 2002), and define a healthy working river as “a managed river in which there is a sustainable compromise, agreed to by the community, between the condition of the natural ecosystem and the level of human use. . . . We work our rivers to produce hydroelectric power
, we divert their waters for town water, manufacturing and for irrigation and we farm the rivers’ fertile floodplains . . . Working rivers will not look like nor will they function in the same way as pristine rivers. In general, the more work the river is made to do the less natural it becomes . . . A different compromise may be struck between the level of work and the loss of naturalness, depending upon the values the community places on any river.”