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Healthy Rivers Lead to Healthy Communities

December 19, 2018

By Michele Sullivan, President of the Caterpillar Foundation

Rivers are life—they flow through the heart of the communities that surround them, providing food, jobs, transportation, energy and, of course, water. But environmental occurrences and human interference such as severe weather, pollution or overfishing all threaten rivers and, subsequently, the people who rely on them. And unfortunately, the greatest impact is most often felt by the most vulnerable members of the surrounding communities.

The fact is that people living in poverty tend to rely more heavily on natural resources to survive, and consequently they are the most impacted when resources are threatened. Without consistent access to healthy rivers and watersheds, generations of people struggle to meet their basic needs and become trapped in poverty. But when river banks and wetlands are rehabilitated, a true transformation occurs. Rivers thrive, farmers have more area to farm, and fish species revive and diversify. Restoration creates a trickle-down effect into nearly every aspect of life and has a profound positive impact on communities around the world.

As part of the Caterpillar Foundation’s work to alleviate poverty, we have worked with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) for over 20 years to restore rivers and wetlands—and I have seen firsthand that as the health of rivers and wetlands improves, so do the lives of the people who live along them.

Through our Great Rivers Partnership with TNC, we have funded improvements of some of the world’s most impressive rivers: The Mississippi River and the Colorado River in the United States, the Magdalena River in Colombia, and the Yangtze River in China. We’ve witnessed the incredible transformation not only of the natural areas, but of the communities surrounding them.

With the Foundation’s support, TNC has worked to map property boundaries and identify deforestation in the Amazon; implemented the first fish monitoring system in China, where 400 million people depend on the Yangtze River for their jobs, their food, and vital economic development; and helped farmers upriver from Nairobi learn to conserve water, soil and nutrients.

In particular, TNC’s work in Kenya through the Nairobi Water Fund is a great example of the transcended impact that results from nature conservation. The Tana River is the longest river in Kenya, flowing from the Aberdare mountains north of Nairobi to the Indian Ocean. It supplies 95 percent of the water used by more than 9 million people in and around Nairobi, as well as 70 percent of the country’s hydropower.

Over the last few decades, farming has exploded in the Upper Tana, and some practices led to highly vulnerable, unprotected soil. During the rainy seasons, soil would wash into the rivers, causing massive amounts of sediment to clog up reservoirs, which in turn increased the price of water treatment, disrupted water services, and reduced land quality and productivity for farmers. Over time, accelerating population growth along the river only increased the demand for food, electricity and especially water, which grew by 250 percent since 2004. 

In March 2015, TNC launched the Nairobi Water Fund, which aimed to create an endowment dedicated to reducing erosion, improving water quality, and regulating water supply, all the while enabling public and private downstream water users to jointly invest in upstream land conservation. The Caterpillar Foundation supported specific programming and projects to restore and protect the Tana River and improve Nairobi’s water security in 2017.

After just two years of TNC’s work, the results have already demonstrated the importance of thoughtful intervention through conservation, and its broader impact on the surrounding communities. The Fund is now working directly with more than 15,000 farmers and reaching an additional 25,000 who are becoming active participants in water conservation through training, resources and equipment. They are learning how to use less water for irrigation and how to farm more responsibly, and they are seeing firsthand the benefits that restoring nature brings to their lives. 

Faces of the Nairobi Water Fund

In addition, Fund activities have reduced water delivery interruptions from sediment spikes by 30 percent, established sustainable management on 48,562 hectares of land, and are planting 175,000 trees a year. As these newly-planted trees hold the soil, farms will become more productive and will yield more revenue and food for families. In the long term, families with more resources have more time for education and entrepreneurship and tend to lead heathier lives, which not only helps those living in the areas now, but also the generations that will follow.

Smart interventions like the Nairobi Water Fund in Kenya are helping conserve our planet’s rivers and wetlands so that more people can benefit from them—upriver and downriver. Restoring ecosystems by working with farmers, teaching conservation to communities that fish, and planting trees makes a difference. By protecting our natural infrastructure, like forests, rivers and wetlands, we can improve the quality of life of those who rely on these resources for their survival and help empower communities with the tools they need to lift themselves out of poverty. 

When river ecosystems are degraded, the greatest impact is often felt by the most vulnerable communities. But working with these communities to restore rivers improves livelihoods and natural areas.

Michelle Sullivan is President of the Caterpillar Foundation and Director of Corporate Social Innovation at Caterpillar Inc.

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Insight and Environment

Why rivers are important for everything from biodiversity to wellbeing.

The UK's 200,000 kilometres of waterway are in crisis. New Scientist's Save Britain's Rivers campaign reveals how crucial they are for the nation's health, wealth and resilience

By Graham Lawton

15 February 2023

The river Dee flows through England and Wales

Henry Ciechanowicz/Alamy

This article is part of  New Scientist and the  i’s  joint campaign, Save Britain’s Rivers .  The year-long collaboration will reveal what’s happening to the UK’s rivers and how to restore them through a series of special articles, films, podcasts and events.

STAND by a river in the UK and you are in touch with the ancients. Their short, gruff names – Thames, Leith, Taff, Lagan – speak volumes of the history of the islands, from ancient Britons through Romans, Saxons and Vikings. These rivers are part of the past and present. Yet they face an uncertain future.

All over the world, rivers are valuable, often sacred, cultural and practical assets. They are a defining feature of human settlements, exploited for millennia as a source of drinking water, food, irrigation, waste disposal, power, navigation, defence and even inspiration.

In the UK, many of these services are just as relevant today. Tap water comes mostly from rivers. Sewage is disposed into them – preferably treated but often not. Rivers irrigate crops, power homes, take away floodwaters and float boats. Millions of people spend some of their leisure time messing about on, or near, rivers.

The UK is a riverine country. Globally, about 0.8 per cent of the land is covered in freshwater. In the UK, that number is 3 per cent. It has about 1500 river systems , with a combined length of over 200,000 kilometres, ranging from gushing upland headwaters to languid floodplain meanderers, via a vast range of intermediate habitats.

By global standards, these rivers are short, narrow and shallow – “mere streams”, according to the National River Flow Archive at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Wallingford. Yet they are extremely diverse in character. According to a recent report by the National Committee UK of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), “rivers and their floodplains are among the most important environments in the UK”.

“It’s well known that rivers and their floodplains – and the two go hand in hand – support a disproportionate level of biodiversity relative to their size within landscapes,” says report co-author Stephen Addy at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, UK.

The state of Britain's rivers: Slurry, silage and sewage

Drinking water and flood management

Although rivers are important for many reasons, their most obvious benefit in the UK is the water they supply. According to Water UK , which represents the country’s water industry, about two-thirds of tap water in England and Wales comes from rivers and the reservoirs and lakes they flow into; the rest is taken from aquifers. Northern Ireland and Scotland rely almost exclusively on rivers, reservoirs and lakes. All told, 87 per cent of the UK water supply comes from these sources.

According to government statistics , water companies in the UK abstract about 4.6 cubic kilometres of river, lake and reservoir water in England for the public supply every year. People drink it, bathe in it, flush their toilets with it, irrigate their gardens with it and use it to wash their clothes, floors and cars. Offices, shops, restaurants and other firms drink deep of it too.

Water is abstracted for other purposes. Electricity generators take 3.4 cubic kilometres to turn their steam turbines, while fish and watercress farms use 0.8 cubic kilometres and agriculture and private water supplies another 0.8. That adds up to a grand total of 9.6 cubic kilometres, equivalent to a cubic tank of water more than 2 kilometres in all dimensions.

Even in a relatively rainy country like the UK, that is milking it. The UK government estimates that about 1 in 5 surface water sources are depleted by over-abstraction , which has knock-on effects on river health.

The opposite problem – too much water – is an increasingly familiar hazard during the winter. Flooding is a growing problem as climate change causes extreme weather events, including biblical downpours. According to the Environment Agency, the UK has had six of its 10 wettest years on record since 1998 . Last year was the first to see three named Atlantic storms in the space of a week .

Natural floodplains can help to mitigate flood risk by corralling the excess water and releasing it slowly back into the river. That is especially true of riverine landscapes engineered by beavers, whose dams and pools massively slow the passage of water through the system. Where rain used to hit the ground and surge straight into the waterways, it now is trapped for weeks. Beavers are being reintroduced all over the UK after they gained legal protection last year .

Plastic waste dumped along the bank of the river Thames in London

Mark Phillips/Alamy

The problem is that many of those floodplains are far from natural, let alone beavered: housing estates and industrial development are often sited on them and these are generally quite useless at mitigating floods.

Water supplies and flood defences are two of many “ecosystem services” supplied by rivers. These are vital goods and services, such as water, pollination and clean air, that flow from nature, or what is increasingly referred to as natural capital.

Economic and health benefits

The UK was the first nation – and remains one of only 26 countries – to audit its natural capital. In 2012, the government established the (now disbanded) Natural Capital Committee (NCC) to advise it on the state of England’s natural capital, in order to help deliver its commitment “to be the first generation to leave the natural environment of England in a better state than it inherited”. In 2020, the NCC published its first set of accounts.

These are by no means complete, as the system for totting up natural capital, called experimental ecosystem accounting, remains a work in progress and nature is complex. But they still speak volumes about the value of rivers.

Water abstraction alone is worth £6.8 billion a year – essentially what it would cost to keep the taps on if rivers didn’t supply the UK with water – and the asset is worth £134 billion (the NCC stressed that these aren’t price tags on nature: given that the natural world supports all life on Earth, its value is infinite). Wetlands sequester 3.5 million tonnes of carbon a year, worth £831 million; that asset is valued at nearly £30 billion. Hydroelectricity generation produces 6865 gigawatt-hours a year, worth £136 million; the value of that asset is £2.2 billion.

These “provisioning and regulating” services are supplemented by some less tangible, but no less valuable cultural services. Around 1 in 10 of the UK’s 5.8 billion annual outdoor recreational and tourist visits are centred on freshwater, worth £681 million; the asset is worth £32 billion. Recreational fishing is a £1.7 billion a year industry. Around 2.7 million people gain health benefits from being in or around freshwater , worth £870 million a year. The asset value of this is nearly £48 billion. Even house prices benefit from the proximity of a river to the tune of £2.9 billion a year.

Essential habitats for biodiversity

One asset that has yet to be incorporated into natural capital accounting is biodiversity, but it is clear that rivers are an important repository of what is left in the UK. Globally, rivers and other bodies of fresh water are disproportionately biodiverse. Despite covering less than 1 per cent of Earth’s surface, they are home to around a third of described species of vertebrate , including approximately 40 per cent of all fish.

The UK’s rivers and the wetlands they feed are disproportionately biodiverse too, though to a lesser extent. They are home to around 10 per cent of the UK’s species , according to the Environment Agency. The IUCN lists 346 river-dependent species, some endangered, including eels, otters, the bar-tailed godwit and feather mosses. The Environment Agency says that over 10 per cent of UK freshwater and wetland species are threatened with extinction.

Rivers are biodiverse in part because they themselves are diverse. A short stretch of lowland river can feature 10 different habitats – pools, riffles (shallow water flowing quickly over stones), glides (deeper, slow-flowing water), backwaters, beds of aquatic vegetation, submerged tree roots, exposed sediment, riverbanks, riparian vegetation and floodplains – all of which provide food and shelter for a different repertoire of species. Further upstream are headwaters, waterfalls and rapids, which also host specialist species such as the freshwater pearl mussel, white-clawed crayfish, brook lamprey and bullhead, as well as juvenile salmon, trout and grey mullet. These juvenile fish will eventually migrate out to sea and become part of the UK fishing industry’s £713 million annual earnings .

Rare chalk streams and poor ecological health

England is also home to the vast majority of the world’s chalk streams, rare and internationally important habitats fed from alkaline aquifers in chalk and characterised by their gravel and flint beds and crystal clear water. They are home to unique ecosystems and have been described as an English Great Barrier Reef . There are only 210 of these waterways in the world and 170 of them are in England (the rest are in northern France).

Unsurprisingly, the value of ecosystem services is strongly related to the ecological state of the asset . In much of the UK, that isn’t a happy tale . England, Wales and Northern Ireland have no rivers considered to be in high ecological health, according to criteria laid down in the four nations’ Water Framework Directives ; only 14 per cent are good . The rest are moderate, poor or bad. None is in a good state in terms of chemical pollution and none is in good overall health. In Scotland, 8 per cent of rivers are in high ecological health.

The IUCN report is blunt on this issue, concluding that “truly natural [river] environments that have escaped both direct and indirect human alteration no longer exist”. However, there is hope, according to Addy. “There are some grounds for being optimistic. River restoration in the UK is undergoing a step change, there are more and more projects going on everywhere.”

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• biodiversity /
• Save Britain's Rivers

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

The future of global river health monitoring

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected] (LMK); [email protected] (CD); [email protected] (DT)

Affiliation Omfishient Consulting, Bremerton, Washington, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation International Water Management Institute, Silverton, South Africa

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation WWF-UK, Living Planet Centre, Woking, United Kingdom

Roles Data curation, Investigation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Department of Geography, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada, National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), RiverLy Research Unit, Centre Lyon-Grenoble Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Villeurbanne, France

Roles Visualization, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå, Sweden

Affiliation School of Biology and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, University of Mpumalanga, Nelspruit, South Africa

Roles Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Geography, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada

Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

• Lauren M. Kuehne, 
• Chris Dickens, 
• David Tickner, 
• Mathis L. Messager, 
• Julian D. Olden, 
• Gordon O’Brien, 
• Bernhard Lehner, 
• Nishadi Eriyagama

• Published: September 13, 2023
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000101
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

Rivers are the arteries of human civilisation and culture, providing essential goods and services that underpin water and food security, socio-economic development and climate resilience. They also support an extraordinary diversity of biological life. Human appropriation of land and water together with changes in climate have jointly driven rapid declines in river health and biodiversity worldwide, stimulating calls for an Emergency Recovery Plan for freshwater ecosystems. Yet freshwater ecosystems like rivers have been consistently under-represented within global agreements such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Even where such agreements acknowledge that river health is important, implementation is hampered by inadequate global-scale indicators and a lack of coherent monitoring efforts. Consequently, there is no reliable basis for tracking global trends in river health, assessing the impacts of international agreements on river ecosystems and guiding global investments in river management to priority issues or regions. We reviewed national and regional approaches for river health monitoring to develop a comprehensive set of scalable indicators that can support “top-down” global surveillance while also facilitating standardised “bottom-up” local monitoring efforts. We evaluate readiness of these indicators for implementation at a global scale, based on their current status and emerging improvements in underlying data sources and methodologies. We chart a road map that identifies data and technical priorities and opportunities to advance global river health monitoring such that an adequate monitoring framework could be in place and implemented by 2030, with the potential for substantial enhancement by 2050. Lastly, we present recommendations for coordinated action and investment by policy makers, research funders and scientists to develop and implement the framework to support conservation and restoration of river health globally.

Citation: Kuehne LM, Dickens C, Tickner D, Messager ML, Olden JD, O’Brien G, et al. (2023) The future of global river health monitoring. PLOS Water 2(9): e0000101. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000101

Editor: Jean-François Humbert, INRA/Sorbonne University, FRANCE

Received: February 19, 2023; Accepted: August 10, 2023; Published: September 13, 2023

Copyright: © 2023 Kuehne et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: No data is included in the paper.

Funding: This work was supported by the CGIAR Initiative on NEXUS Gains and the World Wildlife Fund (staff support of CD and NE; contracting of LMK), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship to MLM), the Université de Lyon (H2O’Lyon Doctoral Fellowship ANR-17-EUR-0018 to MLM) and the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington (Richard C. and Lois M. Worthington Endowment to JDO). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Nearly all aspects of human society are impacted by the health of rivers. Flowing waters act as centres of organisation within the landscape, offering countless cultural and ecological services, and supporting a rich diversity of plants and animals. However, rapid changes in water and land use, climate change and a host of other anthropogenic stressors threaten the biodiversity and ecological integrity of these ecosystems [ 1 ]. As long ago as 2005, the global Millennium Ecosystems Assessment [ 2 ] concluded that freshwater ecosystems were among the most degraded and being used unsustainably. Despite the prominence and persistence of challenges including water security and impacts of climate change on hydrology, attention to the conservation of freshwater ecosystems—including rivers—has nonetheless lagged at the global scale [ 3 ]. This may be due to the perception of freshwater systems as a resource for human use rather than a precious habitat [ 4 ], their more limited spatial extent that reduces public awareness [ 5 ], a historical lack of conservation champions [ 6 ], and inadequate transdisciplinary scholarship [ 7 ]. Additional hurdles are associated with understanding and managing rivers as complex networks [ 8 ], and longstanding traditions of large-scale regulation (i.e., dams, diversions) and water extraction. In response, recent years have witnessed mounting calls for global-scale research and policy actions to stem further losses and degradation of freshwater habitats [ 9 – 11 ].

A significant hurdle to addressing the freshwater biodiversity crisis is that the major global initiatives working to thrust ecosystems onto the global development agenda consistently lack robust representation of freshwater health. These initiatives include The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) for water and wetlands [ 12 ], the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development (the SDGs), the post-2020 Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework (GBF) and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. All of these, together with globally impactful periodic reports such as the Ecological Footprint indicator [ 13 ], the Planetary Boundaries framework [ 14 ], the Water Footprint indicator [ 15 ], and others, lack comprehensive indicators of freshwater ecosystem health. Instead, these efforts generally rely on single or small numbers of proxies. For these reasons, the Emergency Recovery Plan for Freshwater Biodiversity [ 9 ], and subsequently the Sustainable Freshwater Transition set out by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, called for the development of a more robust and inclusive suite of freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem health indicators. The aim of such indicators would be to provide a foundation for consistent, widespread monitoring as part of international environmental and sustainability agreements, whether focused on fresh waters generally or river health specifically.

This paper seeks to chart a path toward policy-relevant, global river health monitoring. Our approach synthesises and builds on the substantial work to monitor river health at national and regional scales over recent decades. Leveraging knowledge established through mature large-scale programs, we identify a robust framework of indicators that can be refined and improved over time through coordinated global policy, research, and data infrastructure developments (i.e., top-down efforts). This common framework can also support local, national, and regional efforts to monitor river health with protocols that are flexible but sufficiently standardised for results to be compared between contexts (i.e., bottom-up efforts). Our objective is to align diverse monitoring and research efforts toward strategic actions over the next two decades that will ultimately facilitate robust, comprehensive, and feasible reporting on global trends in river health.

Status of large-scale river health monitoring

The first step toward a global river health framework is to evaluate current policies, concepts, and data for monitoring and assessment of river health at large-scales (i.e., national to global). The most important development in the last century is undoubtedly the passage of national—or, in the case of the European Union, regional—laws and regulations that mandate restoration and maintenance of freshwater ecosystems to meet water quality or condition standards. Examples of such laws, most of which have been enacted in the last 50 years include the Clean Water Act (1972) in the USA, the Resource Management Act (1991) in New Zealand, the European Water Framework Directive (2000), the CONAMA—Conselho Nacional do Meio Ambiente 357/2005 in Brazil (2005) and the Water Act of South Africa (1998). These laws created legal and financial incentives within nations to develop and refine consistent monitoring and assessment methods over time ( Fig 1 ), including indicators and metrics to evaluate the status of river ecosystems [ 16 , 17 ]. Although mature, large-scale programs are mostly restricted to a handful of economically advantaged nations, they offer a critical foundation for international or intercontinental knowledge transfers to support monitoring of river health globally [ 18 ].

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

Years indicate the point at which the framework was initially published as peer-reviewed or grey literature; the subset of programs or approaches analysed herein are bolded.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000101.g001

The design of any monitoring program begins with the definition of ecosystem health. In this paper, we define ecosystem health as ’The ability of the aquatic ecosystem to support and maintain key ecological processes and a community of organisms with a species composition, diversity, and functional organisation as comparable as possible to that of undisturbed habitats within the region’ (Schofield & Davies, 1996 after Karr & Dudley, 1981). Assessments of river health can emphasise different types of indicators, which are often classified as driving forces, pressures, state, impact, and response (i.e., the DPSIR framework; [ 19 ]). Our definition of river health sets the stage for selecting indicators that reflect biophysical conditions, thus focusing on ecosystem state. This focus represents a strong departure from previous or ongoing evaluations of river health at global scales. Global assessments to date have instead concentrated on pressures on aquatic ecosystems, largely because of the relative ease of computing changes—actual or projected—in land use, anthropogenic impacts, and climate—based on remote sensing and modelled data. These pressure-based models have yielded estimates of water security and risk of biodiversity loss [ 20 ], human use of ecosystem services [ 21 ], and temporal and geographic changes in biodiversity [ 22 ].

The challenges, however, with such models are that pressures on aquatic ecosystems may or may not reflect ecosystem condition or state [ 23 , 24 ], and therefore can offer only limited insight into their relationship with driving forces and responses that can be adjusted through management, mitigation, or restoration [ 25 ]. Weak or unverifiable linkages between ecosystem state, pressures, and driving forces are unlikely to offer the strong justification needed to support policy changes or investments in river health [ 17 , 25 ]. Our focus on ecological state excludes human valuations of rivers, which may encompass socioeconomic, cultural, or spiritual values [ 26 ]. Although such valuations can and have been included in large-scale assessments of river health (e.g., [ 27 ]), we advance that the first priority is to address the considerable knowledge gaps and technical barriers to evaluating the biophysical state of rivers at a global scale. Our position is that there is an urgent need to develop a framework around ecosystem state, and forward the corresponding scientific and research agenda. Such a framework can then provide the foundation to subsequently incorporate relationships with responses and driving forces, as well as holistic social and human values.

The final critical component in designing a river health framework is the availability and quality of data to capture the chosen indicators. Data sources can be grouped into three, not necessarily mutually exclusive, classes: in situ monitoring data (including conventional biological sampling and in situ sensors as well as novel approaches of uncrewed vehicles, crowd-sourcing, or the analysis of environmental DNA), remote sensing imagery (including prospective satellite missions), and modelling (including predictive hydrological models, statistical models, or artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches). While data sources are generally expanding, fundamental challenges persist. The data required for multi-indicator monitoring frameworks are collected by myriad entities, many of which may not openly share data; datasets may also be scale-dependent, discontinuous, or come in incompatible formats (e.g. raster, vector, tables). A forward-thinking river health framework should, therefore, consider both current and anticipated data developments.

The quality of data available at varying scales is a foundational challenge. Bottom-up approaches to assess river health rely on collecting and compiling local information, often with high precision in situ data; yet this makes the expansion to larger regions time-consuming or even practically impossible. Indeed, given the paucity of river health monitoring in many parts of the world [ 18 ], monitoring global river health based on compilation of local information is a formidable task. However, top-down approaches, which usually rely on remote sensing or modelling, tend to use limited amounts of input data and are often coarse in their spatial or temporal resolution, rendering local interpretations inaccurate and uncertain.

To blend both bottom-up and top-down approaches in a global framework requires a scalable geospatial method that can discern local hydrographic features at high spatial resolution, while also allowing linkages to coarser global datasets or modelling results. A standardised, common geospatial framework based on pre-defined spatial units (e.g., river reaches and their catchments) can leverage the strengths of both approaches and adaptively incorporate higher-quality data over time. For example, results from top-down analyses can serve as initial placeholders until more precise local information (e.g., from national or regional monitoring programs) becomes available. These types of multi-scale hydrographic frameworks are increasingly available at full global coverage and high spatial resolution (e.g., HydroATLAS [ 28 ] MERIT Hydro-Vector [ 29 ]).

Besides scalability, a second foundational challenge in monitoring river health is the inherent topological structure of fluvial systems. In contrast to terrestrial systems, river health is determined by conditions in upstream drainage areas as well as more proximate influences. Point-based biological monitoring or instream water quality data can provide an integrated perspective (i.e., a healthy local habitat may indicate good conditions across the entire upstream catchment), and novel approaches such as eDNA analyses and improved chemical detectors offer promising avenues to scale up in situ sampling in the future [ 30 ]. But these methods are not yet available at a global scale, and may continue to require modelling support (e.g., for chemical compounds that are difficult to detect in the field) [ 1 ]. Using top-down approaches, upstream influences can be integrated through data processing and modelling that nests information within hierarchical catchments and allows routing of physical or biological properties along river networks (e.g., using accumulation and decay functions) (e.g., [ 24 ]). Of particular importance is the ability to evaluate longitudinal, lateral, vertical, and temporal connectivity, which is vital to freshwater ecosystems as it defines the fluxes, movement or dispersal of species, materials (including water and sediments), nutrients, and energy [ 31 ]. For this reason, a recommended framework should include a versatile geospatial data concept that can incorporate topological information of upstream, downstream and lateral connections as well as nested and hierarchical relationships between hydrographic features.

Review of monitoring approaches

We initiated this work by comprehensively reviewing existing programs and approaches to monitor and assess river health around the world [ 32 ]. We restricted our review to those implemented at a national, regional, or global scale, as we considered these most likely to possess the properties necessary to inform a global monitoring framework. We focused on operational programs that were developed for monitoring (i.e., surveillance) of river health, rather than investigative approaches. In addition to these, we also evaluated existing global indices of river health; although differing greatly from monitoring programs, their design and implementation offer important insights into the current state of global river health monitoring.

We compared each approach against the following seven criteria that are considered integral to a successful framework: consistency, representativeness, robustness, flexibility, scalability, feasibility, and informativeness [ 33 ]. To assess consistency, representativeness , and robustness , we evaluated methods of data collection and the number and types of indicators used. Flexibility, scalability , and feasibility were explored qualitatively, primarily based on the indicators and methods of data collection, followed by the complexity of methods used to harmonise and integrate data. Lastly, informativeness was qualitatively assessed in the conceptual design and methods that were used to frame and report results.

From this initial review, we identified 10 programs or approaches that met the majority of the seven criteria ( Fig 1 ). From each, we summarised the features or attributes that have the greatest potential to inform the design of a global framework: the indicators used in the assessment, the biophysical components that the indicators reflect, data types, methods of data harmonisation and integration, and practical insights applicable to the design of a global monitoring framework.

Development of the global monitoring framework

Based on the above review, we develop a framework of indicators for global river health monitoring, which we evaluated for feasibility of implementation at two time periods: by 2030 and by 2050. Rather than including indicators based on current feasibility, we considered all potential indicators, regardless of the state of readiness of the data sources or prognosis for development, even by 2050. For example, careful research and expert knowledge have gone into identifying Essential Biodiversity Variables [ 34 , 35 ], a suite of variables that are broadly agreed as necessary and sufficient to monitor national to global biodiversity. However, much coordinated and systematic development of data sources is still needed to characterise these variables at global scales [ 36 ]. Building on these and other studies that have evaluated and identified “ideal” indicators allows us to diagnose research and data gaps that, if addressed, could substantially advance monitoring of global river health. The 2030 and 2050 time horizons were chosen in light of technical considerations as well as the anticipated updating of global sustainability and ecological health initiatives (e.g., the SDGs which expire, but may be refreshed, in 2030). Given the time frames required for research and operationalizing new data sources and methods, the 2030 framework represents data sources and methods that are effectively available in the near term. The second time period of 2050 allows us to evaluate the technical horizon for promising yet feasible technologies, methods or infrastructure that can advance the accuracy and informativeness of these indicators in the near-to-medium future.

Because existing major river health monitoring programs stem from national or regional legislation, they vary in purpose (i.e., matched to specific regulatory context) and are influenced by the approaches and technologies in use at the time of their development ( Fig 1 ; Table 1 ).

Description and attributes of selected large-scale (i.e., national and regional) monitoring programs or global assessment methods determined as meeting a majority of seven criteria for a successful framework [ 33 ]. In any monitoring program, a conceptual framework designates relationships between Indicators, which are often grouped by broader biophysical Components (i.e., themes or categories). Further, the conceptual framework of a specific program may treat Components as driving forces (D), pressures (P), state (S), impact (I), or responses (R) (i.e., the DPSIR framework). [Note: Components and Indicators are presented using the terminology of the individual frameworks]. A majority of frameworks include procedures where indicator data are harmonised (i.e., standardised), integrated (i.e., combined) into Component scores, and assigned to condition classes for reporting the condition of the ecosystem.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000101.t001

Nearly two decades separate early, well-established frameworks [i.e, National Aquatic Resources Survey (NARS) and Water Framework Directive (WFD)] from later ones whose implementation is less well-documented [i.e., Freshwater Biophysical Ecosystem Health Framework (FBEHF) and River Health Index (RHI)]. More recent frameworks tend to include variables based on remote-sensing data, and more explicitly incorporate scale and catchment hierarchy into the conceptual designs and reporting of results [ 32 ]. Each of the large-scale river health programs has perceived advantages and disadvantages ( Table 1 ), and collectively they exemplify the key attributes a large-scale framework should possess. These include: a clear definition of ecosystem health; indicators of multiple biophysical components; standardised methods and protocols of data collection and integration; and scale independence ( Table 1 ). The main reasons for differences in the choice and treatment of components originate from the definition of “freshwater health”, which underlies the conceptual design that combines driving forces, pressures, state, impact and responses. For example, New Zealand’s FBEHF defines ecological integrity as the maintenance of structure and function “in the face of external stress”. Therefore, while the FBEHF relies on biophysical indicators to assess condition (i.e., state), it also recommends conceptual modelling of stressor pathways (i.e., pressures and driving forces) to guide management and policy actions for remediating indicators that are below targets [ 33 ].

The biophysical categories (hereafter, ‘components’) that are monitored, and the range and type of associated indicators differ greatly among river health monitoring frameworks. The four most commonly included components are 1) biology (aquatic life), 2) water quality (physicochemical conditions), 3) physical habitat, and 4) hydrology (water quantity & dynamics) ( Table 1 ), suggesting broad agreement that these components constitute a robust and comprehensive basis for river health monitoring. A majority of the national and regional programs concur in relying on the state of the biological indicators as the primary reflection of aquatic ecosystem or river health; greater differences occur in the treatment of abiotic indicators. Abiotic features may be considered primarily with respect to influencing the biological responses (e.g., NARS, National River Health Program) or incorporated as part of the definition and measurement of ecological health (e.g., WFD, RHI, FBEHF).

Limitations associated with the scale of the monitoring also drive some design decisions, such as availability of data that can reflect indicators of ecosystem health at large scales. This can be seen most starkly in the strong contrast between regional or national-scale monitoring programs and existing global frameworks. Global frameworks tend to emphasise pressures rather than ecosystem state ( Table 1 ) [ 32 ], reflecting current data constraints to assess river health at large scales. Regardless of the source and types of data that inform indicators, frameworks share similarities in the methods used to translate indicator data into an assessment of ecological condition. Large-scale frameworks consistently entail harmonisation (i.e., standardisation) of indicator data to a common scale (e.g., 0–100) against benchmark conditions; these may be relative to local, regional, or environmentally similar reference sites, based on the distribution of values, or predetermined targets. It is typical for assessments to integrate harmonised indicator scores to the level of components and/or to an overall score (though exceptions exist, e.g. NARS). Methods of integration range from simple or geometric averaging to expert ratings. Lastly, for reporting assessment results, integrated scores are commonly classified into 3–6 condition categories (e.g., NARS, RHI, WFD) or a condition gradient (e.g., River EcoStatus Monitoring Programme), although reporting may also include fixed thresholds (e.g., NARS) or proximity to goals (e.g., Environmental Performance Index).

Development of the global framework

Across the four biophysical components, we identified a comprehensive but parsimonious suite of indicators of river health, and provide a prognosis of their readiness at a global scale in 2030 and 2050 ( Table 2 ; S1 Table ). Since these indicators were selected to represent ecosystem state rather than driving forces, pressures, impacts, or responses, all data sources must ultimately be based on either direct measurements or estimation of biological, water quality, physical habitat, or hydrologic parameters ( S1 Table ). The exception is where an explicit decision is made to use proxies as an interim measure, due to data or modelling limitations. Direct measurement may be done via remote sensing or compilation of in situ data, while estimation involves modelling—including interpolation and/or fate-based modelling—that is calibrated with direct measurements.

Each indicator is described with both challenges and opportunities for application to global monitoring, the methods available for implementation by 2030, and recommendations for development toward more accurate and widespread implementation by 2050 [see S1 Table for sources of in situ , remote sensing, and modelled datasets to support development of specific indicators]. Inclusion of each indicator within national or regional and global monitoring programs is shown (● = included, × = not included).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000101.t002

The framework emphasises modelling approaches, which can produce spatially-explicit estimates of all indicators for all rivers. This stems from the fact that both in situ and remote sensing datasets have inherent (often differing) limitations in their utility to reflect the health of freshwater ecosystems at large scales. Modelling can incorporate multiple data sources for the calibration of indicators (or, potentially, interim use of pressure-based proxies), can yield predictions for smaller rivers which are often more data-limited, and offers a way to harmonise indicators into the same hydrographic structure and scale. Importantly, modelling allows representation of uncertainty, which can be reduced as better or more data are incorporated over time and also indicate priorities for improvement (e.g., by highlighting geographic disparities in in situ data).

We organise our presentation of the state-of the-art methods for river health monitoring by biophysical component, first evaluating indicators based on their current feasibility for implementation at a global scale (i.e., 2030) followed by recommendations for development over the next two decades (i.e., 2050).

We recommend five biological indicators of river health, which are fish abundance, fish diversity, invertebrate diversity, aquatic invasive species, and primary productivity. Because biological indicators integrate catchment conditions and anthropogenic influences, they are typically considered to best reflect the ecological state and health of riverine (and other aquatic) ecosystems [ 18 ]; it is not surprising that they are well represented in biological monitoring programs, even at large scales. However, the state of current data sources demonstrates consistent bottlenecks and limitations to implementation at global scales, which will require considerable investment and focus to overcome. For example, the IUCN Red List and the Living Planet Index, arguably the most developed and recognised global systems to assess conservation status of species, suffer from well-documented taxonomic and geographic bias [ 45 – 47 ].

The most obvious challenge for global monitoring of biological indicators is that remote sensing data offer little utility; the possible exception to this is primary productivity, for which chlorophyll can be used as a (limited) proxy [ 48 ]. Capacity to measure or model biological indicators is therefore dictated by the status and availability of global in situ datasets, which currently suffer from strong geographic limitations and bias ( S1 Table ). Given that widespread development of new large scale (i.e., regional or national) monitoring programs is not expected [ 18 ], developing untapped sources of in situ biological data are essential. The rapid development of eDNA in recent years offers particular promise to help overcome the lack of biological data, but will require investment toward application for specific indicators [ 49 ] and implementation at large-scales [ 50 ]. For example, although eDNA analyses of aquatic diversity is improving with community approaches such as universal markers or meta-barcoding—and with comparable or greater sensitivity than traditional methods [ 51 ]—considerable effort is yet needed to build reference sequences and the genetic databases that these approaches rely on [ 52 ]. For these reasons, the potential for other mechanisms to bolster global datasets of aquatic diversity should not be ignored, including processing of museum specimens [ 53 ], fostering citizen science observation networks and platforms [ 54 ], and collating data from national biomonitoring programs [ 24 ]. These options also require little technology, which may be of particular importance for broadening representation in geographically remote areas [ 55 , 56 ]. Model-based data integration methods also provide ways to leverage this growing quantity and types of biological data being collected [ 57 ].

Even anticipated development and expansion of in situ data from the above sources will likely contribute little to the improvement of two indicators, which are fish abundance and primary productivity. A primary drawback of eDNA metabarcoding to evaluate biodiversity is limited ability to infer abundance [ 58 ]. Citizen-science projects equally emphasise reporting species presence rather than abundance [ 56 ]. As such, the dominant sources of in situ data for these two indicators are most likely to come from ongoing compilation of data from disparate research and monitoring efforts, the most informative of which include multi-year time series for detection of trends [ 59 , 60 ]. However, it is not possible to recommend or rely on contributions by local or even national researchers and networks without acknowledging systemic and well-documented barriers to data sharing, ranging from lack of financial support for data synthesis to cultural perspectives [ 61 ]. Given the importance of in situ data to inform biological indicators for rivers (and other aquatic ecosystems), we recommend that research funders support the creation and expansion of large-scale datasets [ 62 ], as well as adopting data sharing criteria to promote behavioural and cultural shifts in scientific practice [ 63 ].

Water quality

Four water quality indicators are recommended to reflect ecological health of rivers: water temperature, nutrient concentrations, suspended sediments, and ecotoxicants ( Table 2 ). Despite current shortcomings, we find that several of these indicators are in a favourable position for implementation at a global scale in the near future. We attribute this readiness to the fact that the respective water quality constituents (temperature, nutrients, sediments) are closely tied to physical landscape features and catchment processes that can be modelled, and that are also more readily measured using remote sensing or in situ methods. Indicators of water quality are commonly included in large-scale monitoring programs ( Table 2 ), and compilation of in situ data that can support improvements in modelling is—albeit in early stages–underway in many places ( S1 Table ). Indeed, the priority opportunities for improvement that we foresee and recommend are in broadening the collection and global compilation of in situ data, including through citizen science monitoring [ 64 ], for improved calibration of existing physical models [ 65 , 66 ]. While satellite-based remote sensing of suspended sediments is already well-developed [ 67 , 68 ] and will continue to progress thanks to the increasing resolution of satellite-based optical imagery, the resolution of thermal infrared imagery is still relatively coarse (≥ 100-m pixel size) and can thus be applied to estimate temperature for only very large rivers at present. Nonetheless, higher resolution data afforded by the imminent launch of new sensors is expected to extend thermal remote sensing to smaller rivers and substantially improve the accuracy of global water temperature models [ 69 ].

Of the four recommended water quality indicators, ecotoxicants are currently the least feasible indicator for implementation in global river health monitoring. This is due to the fact that ecotoxicants are optically inactive and highly variable and localised in their release, concentrations and behaviour [ 70 , 71 ]. The diversity and sources of organic and synthetic chemicals that may be present in fresh waters is daunting. Although agricultural pesticides are often the dominant sources of chemical risk in freshwaters [ 72 , 73 ], other sources may range from heavy metal effluents from mining operations and urban land uses to endocrine-disrupting pharmaceuticals and engineered nanomaterials [ 1 , 74 ]. This heterogeneity makes it very difficult to monitor or model ecotoxicants at large scales based on relationships with catchment development or physical processes. We therefore recommend further exploration of pressure-based proxies for the near-term, and that new research advances our understanding and modelling of persistence, fate and ecotoxicology of chemicals in river ecosystems [ 71 ].

Physical habitat

Four indicators are recommended to reflect physical habitat quality of rivers: connectivity, channel feature diversity, riparian vegetation, and instream vegetation. As with water quality, we find that several of these indicators are relatively well-situated for implementation at a global scale in the near future. However, unlike with water quality, this readiness is not due to the existence of in situ datasets but rather that physical aspects of rivers are more easily characterised from remote sensing data. As a result, anticipated increases in the resolution and capacity of remote sensing products will substantially improve our ability to measure these indicators at a global scale ( S1 Table ). For example, recent launches of high-resolution global multispectral sensors have greatly advanced our ability to measure the extent and structure of riparian vegetation even for narrow riparian corridors, while hyperspectral sensors will increasingly enable species identification, to the extent of differentiating non-native species invasions or quantifying the prevalence of non-native species [ 75 ]. Launches of spaceborne LiDAR sensors will further improve this capacity [ 76 ], as well as the identification of channel feature diversity [ 77 ].

Metrics for assessing longitudinal connectivity (i.e., river fragmentation) at large scales are already well-developed [ 78 ]; however, the global datasets of river barriers that are needed to calculate these metrics are still highly incomplete [ 79 ]. Nonetheless, broader characterization of longitudinal barriers (i.e., beyond the current emphasis on relatively large dams, diversions and road crossings) is advancing with novel remote sensing techniques [ 80 , 81 ] and manual mapping [ 82 ], including citizen-science based efforts [ 83 ]. Lateral connectivity is an important aspect of physical habitat that has lagged substantially behind measurement of longitudinal connectivity, but is poised for substantial advancement at the global scale [e.g., 84 ]. Higher-resolution remote sensing products will allow identification of lateral barriers and lateral surface water coverage and dynamics [ 85 ], while automated and machine learning approaches (e.g., convolutional neural networks) are increasing the accuracy of surface water classifications, resulting in improved capacity to characterise lateral connectivity at large scales [ 86 , 87 ] and over time [ 88 ].

Although we predict consistent improvements in most physical habitat indicators based on higher resolution and better classification of remote sensing products, the exception to this trend is the characterization of instream vegetation, which is very challenging to assess remotely [ 89 ]. This is due to tradeoffs between spatial, temporal, spectral and radiometric resolution, all of which are needed for accurate estimation of aquatic vegetation. Aquatic plants are not routinely or comprehensively measured as part of large-scale monitoring programs, resulting in limited in situ datasets to support modelling and remote sensing classification training efforts. We recommend that developing this indicator will benefit most from modelling aquatic plant diversity and abundance based on hydrographic characteristics (e.g., discharge, floodplain extent, inundation) and nutrients [ 90 , 91 ], supported by the anticipated expansion of hyperspectral imagery [ 89 ]. It is also possible that environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling—if conducted at large scales–might inform measurement of aquatic plant diversity [ 92 ]. However, development of eDNA for aquatic plants is behind even other freshwater taxonomic groups [ 93 ]; and the relation of eDNA with abundance of plants (and other biological organisms) seems likely to remain elusive for some time.

Our recommended framework includes two hydrologic indicators of river health, which are the extent of surface water and the degree of alteration from the natural flow regime. Both of these indicators currently are in a state of moderate readiness for implementation at a global scale, mostly due to a bias toward measuring large rivers, resulting in limited and inconsistent data to monitor extent and flow of small or intermittent streams [ 94 ]. However, both indicators are likely to gain substantially from recent and anticipated improvements in remote sensing products ( S1 Table ). Measurements of flow alteration are commonly included in large-scale monitoring based on national gauge systems; however, these systems disproportionately monitor large, perennial, developed, and regulated rivers [ 95 ]. Global availability of discharge measurements also depends greatly on the financial and technical capacity of countries to collect data, combined with their willingness and capacity to provide access [ 96 , 97 ]. Despite ongoing calls and resolutions for international gauge data sharing, logistical, financial, and administrative constraints have caused gauge networks and data contributions to consistently decline for several decades [ 95 , 98 ]. Modelling of flow alteration at a global scale is plagued by both the limitations and availability of in situ data stated above, and challenges in downscaling models to reflect conditions in medium or small rivers [ 99 , 100 ]. Though likely to require several decades of development–we advance that one of the most promising opportunities to improve accuracy and resolution of discharge is the emerging use of satellite altimetry, which will help fill data gaps for large and medium rivers [ 101 ]. For small (and medium) rivers, another important opportunity lies in community science initiatives to monitor streamflow, which can range from maintaining and monitoring fixed gauges [ 102 , 103 ] to low-tech options for ungauged sites [ 104 ].

In contrast to streamflow, which has been routinely measured in some countries for more than a century, systematic mapping of surface water extent is only recently possible [ 105 ]; this indicator is therefore not well represented in large scale monitoring programs. Critical limitations in measurement of surface water at a global scale are the resolution of these remote sensing data, along with substantial challenges from overhanging and emergent vegetation and frozen, snow or glacial surfaces, which interfere with the optical properties of water [ 106 ]. For this reason, mapping of surface water extent for medium or small rivers has only become feasible with very recent launches of high-resolution sensors [ 85 ]. However, even these high-resolution products are unlikely to address the substantial issue of incorporating riverine wetland areas (i.e., riparian or forested), which may be permanently or seasonally inundated. Future development of this indicator that accounts for surface water across the full spectrum of riverine habitats will likely require a combined modelling approach based on classification of high-resolution remote sensing data and topographic analyses of wetland presence and extent [ 107 , 108 ].

We initiated this work in response to what is not only a dire situation for global river health monitoring, but where we believe the prognosis and trajectory for substantial improvement over time is currently uncertain. This position is supported by other strenuous calls for improvement in global monitoring and conservation of freshwater systems and biodiversity [ 9 , 11 , 36 , 109 ]. However, we advance that important developments in policy and research have also set the stage for adoption and step-wise implementation of a global river health monitoring framework, which can support adaptive management and restoration for rivers at diverse levels of geographic organization ( Fig 2 ).

Steps and associated benefits of implementing a river health framework that adaptively supports, coordinates, and integrates research and monitoring efforts from local to international scales. A common hydrographic framework provides the structure to integrate local monitoring (bottom-up) with regional or global data syntheses (top-down), and harmonise indicators across spatial scales. Degree of Health (represented by colours) based on indicators can be integrated at increasing scales, to inform prioritisation of investments for monitoring and restoration. [Note: Degree of Health shown in the figure is indicative only and does not represent quality for any region based on actual data]. Maps of the Nile Basin https://www.hydrosheds.org/products/hydrobasins [ 99 ] are reprinted with permission from the HydroBASINS Database, HydroSHEDS 2023. African continent https://hub.arcgis.com/datasets/africa::africa-countries/about [ 122 ] and world maps https://hub.arcgis.com/datasets/esri::world-countries-generalized/about [ 123 ] are reprinted with permission from Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., Esri Master License Agreement 7 Dec 2022.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000101.g002

A common framework to assess river health is a critical foundation to address global disparities in monitoring and evaluation. Regions and nations vary widely in the resources that they have available for this work, as well as the existence and structure of incentives [ 18 ]. An important outcome of a multi-scale framework is the ability to estimate river health in data-poor areas (albeit with more uncertainty), which can indicate geographic areas that should be prioritised for data collection, synthesis, and modelling [ 110 ]. As capacity grows to more accurately measure and compare the biophysical condition of rivers, at scales varying from reach to basin ( Fig 2 ), so too does the ability to relate condition to anthropogenic pressures and impacts, and to underlying socio-economic conditions and cultural values [ 34 ]. Biophysical conditions can serve as a basic template into which human perspectives and valuing of rivers are subsequently incorporated as additional indicators. These indicators can be developed at national or local scales, as appropriate, and with the involvement of diverse stakeholders [ 26 , 27 ].

A global framework will also help address disparities in river health monitoring by providing a structure for global coordination of research and monitoring efforts. Effective river health monitoring, protection, and restoration crosses standard jurisdictions, which is why there are many efforts at not only national but also basin, trans-boundary basin and regional scales [ 111 ]. A strong global commitment to a suite of river health indicators (i.e., our proposed framework) can guide and support existing and developing programs and provide structure to integrate monitoring efforts at diverse scales ( Fig 2 ) [ 35 ]. Such efforts may include the development of new monitoring tools, ranging from use of low-tech and/or citizen-science based gauging stations [e.g., CrowdHydrology, 104 ] to the development of new systems of governance or national monitoring programs [ 112 ]. A global framework can support and justify work by nations (or regions) that are engaged in or in a position to coordinate data gathering, synthesis, and evaluation toward a global agenda. Concurrently, international organisations and/or nations with resources can focus on the research gaps for global-scale indicators ( Table 2 )–many of which emphasise addressing data limitations in developing nations—when determining funding priorities.

Enabling factors

We see three fundamental factors needed to enable development and step-wise implementation of a global river health monitoring framework. First, we urge the adoption of river health monitoring and its benefits for sustainable water resource management as a priority within local, regional, and global initiatives (Steps 1–2, Fig 2 ). Rivers and river health warrant protection not only for the considerable ecological and social benefits they confer, but for the strong concordance and linkages with terrestrial conservation and protection efforts. Conservation planning has historically segregated terrestrial, marine, and freshwater ecosystems, and favoured terrestrial priorities and biodiversity, which can generally be protected in defined spatially restricted reserves [ 113 ]. However, there is mounting evidence for the co-benefits of integrating freshwater conservation and biodiversity targets into terrestrial conservation planning [ 114 , 115 ]. Specifically, because rivers are networks that connect habitats and integrate catchment conditions, actions that protect and restore rivers (and riparian areas) also benefit terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity [ 116 , 117 ], and it has been found that freshwater targets can be dramatically improved with only negligible risk for terrestrial targets [ 114 , 118 ]. Regional and international agreements and conservation planning need to acknowledge and reflect the large contribution of rivers and river health to overall biodiversity.

Second, we recommend a resolute and coordinated focus to develop methods and synthesise data sources for the framework of indicators (Steps 3–4, Fig 2 ). Decades of large-scale monitoring programs support agreement on suitable indicators, and corresponding investment in their development for global scale implementation. This requires advancing data collection and synthesis for indicators, using methods that can range from incentivising individual scientists (and governments) to share local data, to improving the resolution and availability of remote sensing products [ 11 ]. The technologies that we have outlined could improve measurement of biophysical components (or specific indicators), but implementation at the global scale requires more than technical advancement. For example, eDNA–which can estimate aquatic species presence and/or abundance of some species–has the potential to dramatically improve the availability of in situ data for critically important biological indicators ( Table 2 ). However, its use for global river health monitoring requires that the technology is accessible and widely used (i.e., outside of developed countries), and that there are platforms to synthesise eDNA data, based on agreed-upon standards of detection [ 52 ]. Similarly, machine-learning approaches, including artificial intelligence to automate classification of remote sensing data, have strong potential to advance and refine the measurement of physical habitat and hydrologic indicators [ 86 , 88 ]. However, improving and implementing these approaches to assess river health requires interdisciplinary collaboration across fields of ecology, data science, and artificial intelligence.

As previously noted, a critical advancement toward global river monitoring is agreement on the use of a multi-scale framework [ 28 , 29 ] with standardised spatial units of river reaches and catchments (Step 5, Fig 2 ). A common hydrographic framework would provide the geospatial foundation for developing recommended procedures for data collection (e.g., determination of local or regional sampling sites, synthesis, modelling methods) as well as a system for harmonising indicator data to visualize and compare ecosystem condition ( Table 1 ). Together, a common spatial system and suite of indicators would allow individual governments and researchers working at local, national or regional scales to contribute environmental and monitoring data to the global framework (i.e., bottom-up). Concurrently, international organizations and researchers working at larger scales can focus efforts to develop and improve global data sources and methods to support and complement local and national efforts (i.e., top-down) (Steps 6–8, Fig 2 ).

This leads to our third recommendation, which is to identify and promote an international organisation responsible for the coordination of national or regional commitments and accountability. Simply stated, it is not possible for a national or even regional entity to coordinate the multi-scale efforts and diversity of actions needed, nor to sustain those efforts over the time scale that is required. We do not suggest that an international organisation would do all of the work, but would rather have accountability for finalising a framework, promoting and coordinating research activities (e.g., data synthesis, modelling), housing data repositories and products (or coordinating solutions), fostering grassroot developments, and encouraging relevant national and regional policy [e.g., 112 ]. An international organisation would also be well-positioned to lead or support efforts by member countries or other entities to fund work that advances the global research agenda. Depending on the scale of the work, funding could be sought from national funding agencies, large foundations, or global funding organisations (e.g., World Bank, Global Environment Facility).

Previous examples of an international effort that could be emulated is the Global Forest Resource Assessment Program (FRA), housed within the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Initiated in 1946, the FRA has conducted global forest assessments in cooperation with member countries, which has included identification and promotion of a common framework of indicators [ 119 ]. The process has evolved and matured over time, integrating new monitoring technologies and incorporating bottom-up efforts from a larger number of nations and stakeholders as they have been developed and are available [ 120 , 121 ]. We recommend development of a similar initiative housed in an international program (e.g., the UN Environmental Programme, UN Food and Agriculture Organization) focused on river health monitoring. River health is inherently and inextricably intertwined with other environmental challenges that impact humans. An initiative to develop and improve a global river health framework would be well-positioned to work synergistically with other international initiatives, such as those focused on water security (e.g., the SDGs), biodiversity (e.g., IPBES, CBD), and climate change (e.g., the NDCs).

Applying the framework

The framework that we recommend is intended to support an adaptive process to monitor river health at a global scale. Importantly, we believe this process could result in an initial picture of global river health within the next 10 years, by 2030, a timeframe that is well-aligned to inform the anticipated review of international conventions (i.e., SDG and CBD). However, interim products could guide and inform current and emerging data monitoring, conservation, and restoration efforts. Monitoring that incorporates a majority of indicators could be implemented in data-rich areas to guide conservation and restoration planning at national or regional scales ( Fig 2 ); these would serve as useful test cases for iterative design of outputs and products (e.g., river health scorecards) that could effectively inform policy and public communications. Initial assessments at a global scale could be implemented using a subset of indicators for which data resources are robust and confidence is high ( Table 2 , Fig 2 ). Such initial or interim assessments could contribute data toward indicators and targets that are already outlined in international conventions, but which are currently inadequately measured. These include SDG 6.6.1 [“Change in the extent of water-related ecosystems over time”], IPBES [“Nature” or “Nature’s benefits to people”], multiple articles within RAMSAR [Articles 2.1–2.5, 3.2, 4.3, etc] and multiple targets within the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework [draft Targets 1,2,3,5 and 9].

Summary and conclusions

Historical challenges and technological barriers have stymied our capacity to monitor and assess the health of river ecosystems at a global scale. These include a relative lack of conservation awareness for fresh waters, a focus on the extractive rather than ecosystem value of rivers, monitoring methods developed for local and national purposes, and challenges in applying large-scale (i.e., remote sensing) monitoring methods to rivers. Decades of large-scale monitoring combined with technological advancements can now support development of a framework of indicators that represents the biophysical health of rivers at a global scale. However, widespread commitment to a framework is needed to focus and consolidate the monitoring approach, advance necessary research and data syntheses, and improve accuracy of these indicators over time. Through integration of bottom-up and top-down approaches, a consistent global framework will also provide critical support for river conservation and restoration efforts at scales ranging from local to international.

Supporting information

S1 table. data sources..

Current sources and compilations of in situ , remote sensing (RS), and modelled datasets that would support development of the recommended indicators outlined in Table 2 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000101.s001

Acknowledgments

This work was carried out under the CGIAR Initiative on NEXUS Gains. We also gratefully acknowledge the logistical and administrative support of The International Water Management Institute.

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• 59. Deinet S, Scott-Gatty K, Rotton H, Twardek WM, Marconi V, McRae L, et al. The Living Planet Index (LPI) for migratory freshwater fish: Technical Report. Groningen: World Fish Migration Foundation; 2020 p. 31. https://worldfishmigrationfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/LPI_report_2020.pdf
• 69. Buffet L, Gamet P, Maisongrande P, Salcedo C, Crebassol P. The TIR instrument on TRISHNA satellite: a precursor of high resolution observation missions in the thermal infrared domain. In: Sodnik Z, Cugny B, Karafolas N, editors. International Conference on Space Optics—ICSO 2020. Online Only, France: SPIE; 2021. p. 26.
• 108. Halabisky M, Miller D, Stewart AJ, Lorigan D, Brasel T, Moskal LM. The Wetland Intrinsic Potential tool: Mapping wetland intrinsic potential through machine learning of multi-scale remote sensing proxies of wetland indicators. EGUsphere [preprint]. 2022; Preprint egusphere-2022-665.
• 122. ESRI. “Africa Countries” [Feature Layer]. Esri Africa; 2018. https://hub.arcgis.com/datasets/africa::africa-countries/about
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Short Essay on River Pollution [100, 200, 400 Words] With PDF

Rivers are one of the most important resources on the earth. They help in sustaining lives on the planet. Without rivers, all of us will die. That’s why river pollution is a big issue on our planet. In this lesson, you will learn how to write an essay on river pollution. 

Short Essay on River Pollution in 100 Words

Rivers give us life. They give us fresh water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and farming as well as provide us with food in the form of fish. Today, most of our rivers are severely polluted. In many places, waste and industrial by-products from factories, industries, refineries as well as domestic sewage directly end up in rivers.

Chemicals from fertilisers and pesticides also leach and pollute the water. In villages, people still wash and bathe in rivers and use the same water for drinking and cooking. This can lead to dangerous diseases like typhoid and cholera. A high concentration of chemicals can also kill fishes and other aquatic creatures. Keeping rivers clean is very important and we must act responsibly.

Short Essay on River Pollution in 200 Words

Freshwater is essential for the survival of not just human beings but also of most animals and other living creatures. One of the most important sources of fresh water is rivers. Rivers provide us with clean water and even food in the form of fish. Unfortunately, today, most of our rivers are severely polluted. 

Industries and large corporations dispose of their waste in rivers. In many places, untreated domestic sewage also ends up getting dumped in rivers. Chemicals from fertilisers, insecticides, and pesticides leach from the fields and run off to nearby rivers and streams. In villages, people still wash themselves, their clothes, dishes, and animals in river water. Because of all these activities, the rivers that once contained clean and fresh water are now contaminated with nitrates, phosphates, zinc, lead, and other toxic chemicals. 

Rivers give us life and a vast population of people are still directly dependent on rivers for water. Consuming contaminated water can lead to dangerous diseases like typhoid and cholera. A high concentration of chemicals in water can also kill fish and disrupt river ecosystems. Thus, it is very important to keep the rivers clean. Municipalities should set up sewage treatment plants and industrial waste must not be directly dumped into rivers. It is our duty as well to save our rivers and keep them clean. 

Short Essay on River Pollution in 400 Words

Freshwater is essential for the survival of human beings, animals, and a vast majority of living beings on this planet. Freshwater is found in glaciers, rivers, lakes, and ponds. Out of these, rivers are the most accessible to people and thus, it is no wonder that most of the ancient civilizations like those in Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, and India, developed around major rivers. Rivers also have a lot of religious and cultural significance in many different cultures. And yet, today, our rivers have become severely polluted and contaminated. 

River pollution is any change in the physical, chemical, or biological properties of river water that has a detrimental effect on the river ecosystem as well as the living beings dependent on the river. Many industries, factories, and refineries dump their waste and industrial by-products in the nearby rivers. Domestic waste like sewage is also carried to rivers through the drainage systems. When it rains, chemicals from fertilisers, insecticides, and pesticides leach from the fields and run off to rivers and streams. In many villages, slums, and suburban areas, people still wash their clothes, dishes, and animals in the river water. They bathe and clean themselves in rivers. 

The rivers that once contained clean and refreshing water are now contaminated with nitrates, phosphates, plastics, zinc, lead, copper, and mercury. These pollutants have the capability to kill fishes and other creatures that live in the water. They can disrupt aquatic ecosystems.

Water from rivers is also used as drinking and cooking water by people. Although there are water treatment plants in cities, in most villages and towns, people use untreated water which negatively impacts their health and well-being. Polluted water can cause typhoid, cholera, hepatitis, and various other diseases. Those who consume fish and other creatures living in these polluted rivers can also get food poisoning as the fishes contain toxins harmful to human beings. 

Keeping the rivers clean is very important. Municipalities in cities, as well as small towns and villages, should keep a check on the condition of rivers and install sewage treatment plants for domestic waste. Plastic and other waste materials should be disposed of properly so that they don’t end up in rivers.

Governments should regulate industrial waste management standards and make sure no toxic or untreated waste makes its way to rivers. There should also be awareness programs to make people aware of the consequences of river pollution and to teach them how to act more responsible. Rivers give us life. It is our duty to keep them clean. 

In the session above, you have learned how to write essays on river pollution. I have tried to discuss the topic in a simple language that every student can understand. Hopefully, you now have a holistic idea of the context and you will be able to write such essays yourself. To read more such lessons, keep browsing our website. 

Join us on Telegram to get the latest updates on our upcoming sessions. Thank you, see you again, soon. 

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Essay On River

500 words essay on river.

Rivers are the backbone of human civilizations which provide freshwater that is the basic necessity for human life. We cannot live without water and rivers are the largest water bodies for freshwater. In fact, all civilizations in the past and present were born near river banks. In other words, they are veins of the earth that make life possible. Through an essay on rivers, we will take a look at their importance and how to save them.

Importance of Rivers

We refer to rivers as the arteries of any country. No living organism can live without water and rivers are the most important source of water. Almost all the early civilizations sprang up on the river banks.

It is because, from ancient times, people realized the fertility of the river valleys. Thus, they began to settle down there and cultivate the fertile valleys. Moreover, rivers originate from mountains which carry down rock, sand and soil from them.

Then they enter plains and water keeps moving slowly from the mountainsides. As a result, they deposit fertile soil. When the river overflows, this fertile soil deposits on the banks of rivers. Thus, bringing fresh fertile soil constantly to the fields.

Most importantly, rivers help in agriculture. In fact, a lot of farmers depend on rivers for agricultural purposes. Rivers have the ability to turn deserts into productive farms. Further, we can use them for constructing dams as well.

Further, rivers also are important highways. That is to say, they offer the cheapest method of transport. Before road and railways, rivers were essential means of transportation and communication.

In addition, rivers bring minerals down from hills and mountains. We construct damns across the river for generating hydel power and also preserve the wildlife. Further, they also come in use for encouraging tourism and developing fisheries.

Save Rivers

As pollution is on the rise, it has become more important than ever to save rivers. We must take different measures to do so. First of all, we must use biodegradable cleaning products and not use chemical products for body washing.

Further, we must not waste water when we shower. After that, we must install the displacement device in the back of the toilet for consuming less water. It is also essential to turn the tap off while brushing or shaving.

Moreover, one must also switch off the lights and unplug devices when not in use. This way we save electricity which in turn saves water that goes into the production of electricity. Always remember to never throw trash in the river.

Insulating your pipes will save energy and also prevent water wastage. Similarly, watering the plants early morning or late evening will prevent the loss of water because of evaporation . Finally, try to use recycled water for a carwash to save water.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on River

Rivers are essential as they are nature’s blessings for human beings. It provides us with so many things but nowadays, they are being polluted on a very large scale. We must all come together to prevent this from happening and saving our rivers for a better future.

FAQ of Essay on River

Question 1: What is the importance of rivers?

Answer 1: Rivers are important as they carry water and nutrients to areas all around the earth. Further, rivers play quite an important part of the water cycle, as they act as drainage channels for surface water. Most importantly, they provide excellent habitat and food for many of the earth’s organisms.

Question 2: How can we protect our rivers?

Answer 2: We can protect our rivers by segregating our household garbage into biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste. Moreover, volunteering with NGOs and community groups is also great option to save rivers from pollution.

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Essay on Importance of Rivers

Students are often asked to write an essay on Importance of Rivers in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Importance of Rivers

Significance of rivers.

Rivers are crucial to all life on Earth. They supply water, a vital resource for humans, animals, and plants. Rivers also provide fertile soil for agriculture, helping us grow food.

Rivers as Habitats

Rivers are home to numerous species. They support biodiversity, offering a habitat for fish, birds, and other wildlife. This biodiversity is essential for a balanced ecosystem.

Transport and Trade

Historically, rivers have been important routes for transport and trade. They have helped civilizations prosper by connecting different regions for commerce.

Rivers and Recreation

Rivers offer recreational activities like fishing, boating, and swimming. They are also a source of aesthetic beauty, inspiring artists and poets alike.

250 Words Essay on Importance of Rivers

Introduction.

Rivers, the lifeblood of our planet, play an indispensable role in the global ecosystem. They serve as the arteries of the earth, transporting water from the mountains to the oceans, thereby supporting diverse forms of life and shaping civilizations.

Economic Significance

Rivers are the cradle of human civilization, with many ancient societies, such as the Egyptians, Indus Valley, and Mesopotamians, flourishing along riverbanks. Today, they continue to drive economies by providing water for agriculture, generating hydroelectric power, facilitating transport, and supporting fisheries.

Ecological Importance

Rivers maintain ecological balance by facilitating the nutrient cycle. They transport sediments and nutrients from the land to the sea, fostering rich, productive ecosystems like wetlands and estuaries. They also provide habitats for a wide range of species, contributing to biodiversity.

Human Health and Recreation

Rivers are essential for human health, supplying fresh water for drinking and sanitation. Additionally, they offer recreational opportunities, such as boating, swimming, and fishing, promoting physical health and mental well-being.

Climate Regulation

Rivers play a critical role in climate regulation. They absorb carbon dioxide, helping to mitigate climate change. Moreover, the water cycle, integral to climate patterns, is heavily influenced by rivers.

In conclusion, rivers are vital for sustaining life on earth. They are economic engines, ecological regulators, sources of health and recreation, and climate moderators. In the face of escalating environmental challenges, it is crucial to prioritize river conservation to ensure a sustainable future for all.

500 Words Essay on Importance of Rivers

Rivers, the lifeblood of civilizations, have played an indispensable role in shaping the course of human history. They are not just water bodies, but dynamic ecosystems teeming with unique biodiversity and offering a plethora of benefits to mankind.

The Role of Rivers in Civilization and Culture

Rivers have been instrumental in the development of civilizations. Many ancient societies such as the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, and Ancient Egypt sprouted along the fertile riverbanks. These water bodies provided the necessary resources for agriculture, transportation, and trade, leading to the growth of prosperous societies.

Moreover, rivers have profound cultural and spiritual significance. They are often revered in various religions and mythologies, symbolizing life, purity, and rejuvenation. The Ganges in India, the Nile in Egypt, and the Jordan River in the Middle East are prime examples of rivers deeply intertwined with cultural identities.

Economic Importance of Rivers

Rivers continue to be economic powerhouses even in modern times. They serve as major trade routes, connecting different regions and facilitating the exchange of goods. Furthermore, they provide water for agriculture, contributing significantly to food security. In many developing countries, rivers are the primary source of irrigation, supporting the livelihood of millions.

The potential of rivers for generating hydroelectric power cannot be overlooked. Countries with abundant river resources, like Canada and Norway, have harnessed this potential to produce a significant portion of their electricity.

Ecological Significance

Rivers are vital ecological corridors, supporting a wide array of flora and fauna. They maintain the health of wetlands, which are biodiversity hotspots and crucial for climate regulation. Rivers also play a key role in nutrient cycling. They transport nutrients from land to sea, aiding in the productivity of marine ecosystems.

Rivers and Climate Change

Rivers are also significant in the context of climate change. They act as carbon sinks, absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. Additionally, healthy river systems can mitigate the impacts of climate change by providing water during droughts and acting as natural flood control systems.

Despite their immense importance, rivers worldwide face severe threats due to pollution, over-extraction, and climate change. It is imperative that we understand the multifaceted roles of rivers and strive to protect and conserve these invaluable natural assets. By doing so, we not only ensure our survival but also contribute to the health and resilience of our planet.

In the words of Leonardo da Vinci, “Water is the driving force of all nature.” Indeed, rivers, as the most tangible manifestation of this element, are the driving force of life, culture, economy, and ecology. Their importance cannot be overstated, and their preservation is a task that falls upon all of us.

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Establishment and application of ecological health evaluation system for urban and rural rivers in Yangtze Estuary

• Research Article
• Open access
• Published: 23 May 2023
• Volume 6 , article number  9 , ( 2023 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Biaobiao Peng 1 ,
• Benwei Shi 1 , 2 ,
• Ya Ping Wang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8771-465X 1 , 3 ,
• Jingjing Li 1 ,
• Xinmiao Zhang 1 ,
• Xiaoyu Liu 1 ,
• Anglu Shen 5 &
• Yifan Ding 6  

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The assessment of river ecosystem health is crucial for improving river resilience, achieving ecological protection and rational utilization in the Yangtze Estuary region where there is high utilization of rivers and a high demand for quality rivers by Shanghai, the world's largest modern city. To assess the ecological health status of Yangtze Estuary rivers, this study established a river health assessment model consisting of five dimensions: water quality, river landscape, aquatic organisms, river hydrology, and human interference, and a total of ten indicators based on the ecological survey results in the summer and autumn of six river channels in Chongming Island in the Yangtze Estuary. The evaluation results reveal that the health status of rural rivers in the northwest and east of Chongming Island (S2, S3) is the best, reaching an excellent level, while the small river in the central part of Chongming Island (S6) is the worst, reaching a somewhat inferior level. Compared with rural rivers, the comprehensive evaluation results of urban rivers are good or ordinary level. The high proportion of building area on both sides of the river and the low vegetation cover are the main factors that restrict their scoring results. In contrast, rural rivers need to focus on the area of buffer zones such as forests and vegetation on both sides of the river, river connectivity, appropriate widening of narrow rivers, regular cleaning and dredging of rivers, as well as reducing human interference with the rivers. Regarding seasonal changes, the health assessment results of Chongming Island rivers in summer are better than those in autumn, and the differences between sites in summer are slightly greater than those in autumn. The seasonal differences between sites are mainly due to changes in indicators of the diversity of zooplankton, phytoplankton, and macrobenthos. To further improve the ecological health of rivers, measures of ecological restoration could be adjusted based on regular health assessment and health weakness analysis.

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1 Introduction

Rivers provide human beings with various ecological services such as water sources, biological protection, and landscape, and promote the development of cities with their natural, social, economic, and environmental values. However, with the development of human society, the disturbance to rivers is increasing day by day. Dam construction, water intake, diversion, turning straight, blocking the Han River and the solidification of the river bank, and the destruction of the riparian vegetation zone have disturbed the river flow pattern and hydrological cycle process, and have synergistic effects with water pollution and excessive utilization of aquatic organisms, resulting in the degradation of the river ecosystem (Poff et al. 1997 ; Aguiar et al.  2010 ; Chovanec et al. 2015 ). The river’s ecological degradation has threatened public interests, which makes it increasingly urgent in social needs to improve the quality of the river’s ecological environment. The health of the river ecosystem has attracted the attention of governments and academia. A healthy river ecosystem has become an important management goal.

The connotation of "health" constitutes the focal point of the conceptual framework for ecosystem health assessment. Due to its ambiguous and abstract nature, the precise definition of ecosystem health has been a subject of controversy (Costanza et al. 1992 ; Rapport 1989 ; Peng et al. 2007 ; Liu et al. 2010 ). Over the past few decades, scholars have engaged in extensive theoretical discussions on the definition of "health" (Schaeffer et al.  1988 ; Meyer 1997 ; Boulton 1999 ). Previous research has defined ecosystem health from diverse disciplinary perspectives and case studies, which can be broadly categorized into biological ecology definitions and ecological economics definitions. The former underscores the natural ecological aspects of the ecosystem while disregarding socioeconomic and human health factors. The latter regards humans as integral parts of an ecosystem and accounts for the health of the ecosystem, as well as the extent to which it meets human needs and desires, namely, ecosystem services. In the early stages of research, the definition of river health was mainly focused on the natural properties of rivers. Karr defined river ecological integrity as health (Karr 1999 ), while Simpson defined river health as the main process of support and maintenance by the river ecosystem to restore its previous undisturbed capabilities (Simpson et al. 1999 ). The undisturbed state of rivers was considered as healthy. However, due to the severe impact of human activities on urban rivers during the process of urbanization and development, it is difficult to return to an undisturbed state even after the ecological restoration of urban rivers. Furthermore, urban rivers not only need to sustain their own ecosystem structure and functions but also need to provide corresponding ecological services for urban residents.

Currently, most scholars maintain that ecosystem health pertains to the ability of regional ecosystems to sustainably maintain spatial structure and ecological processes, self-regulation, restoration, and meet the reasonable needs of human society. Researchers have applied this concept to river health management and have scientifically evaluated the status of river ecosystems from the perspectives of water quality, biology, and ecology, with the aim of enhancing river management. The United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and other countries have successively carried out research and practice on river health evaluation and formed a series of evaluation methods such as RIVPACS, AUSRIV AS, IBI, RCE, ISC, and RHP (Bain et al.  2000 ; Ladson et al. 1999 ; Karr 1999 ; Munné  et al. 2003 ; Brizga et al. 2000 ).

As the concept of ecosystem health was applied to urban rivers, the assessment and research on urban river health achieved some development in China. Some Chinese experts learn from the advanced experience of foreign countries to screen different indicators, trying to establish a river health index system and apply it to river management. Such as Zhao and Yang built an index system based on five factors including water quantity, water quality, aquatic organisms, physical structure, and riparian zone, and used it to evaluate river health in the city of Ningbo (Zhao et al. 2005 ). Deng et al. established the indicator-based assessment system of urban river health and applied it to river management in Lijiang. The system was composed of three first-tier indexes, including natural biology, social economy, and landscape environment, as well as twenty-four second-tier indexes (Deng et al. 2014 ). Peng constructed the ecological assessment system of rivers and lakes based on the five aspects of hydrology and water resources, the physical form of rivers and lakes, water quality, aquatic organisms, and the social service function of rivers and lakes (Peng 2018 ). Some scholars have considered the impact of human activities when assessing the health of natural ecosystems and incorporated such factors into their models (Liao et al. 2018 ; Sun et al. 2019 ), while there has been a lack of reported evaluation models that include the influence of human activities in river health assessments.

The Yangtze Estuary has a unique geographical location, which is affected by both rivers and offshore. The environmental factors are complex and changeable, and the biological communities are rich. There are both broad coastal wetlands and towns with high-density populations, which also makes river ecosystem health management in the region challenging.

Chongming Island is located in the Yangtze Estuary and is surrounded by water, and the island is full of ditches and rivers, and the water system is rich, including urban rivers and suburban rivers, and the river’s ecological environment is complex and changeable. With the development of the social economy, the river ecosystem of Chongming Island encountered some difficulties, And there are differences between different regions, for example, rivers near urban and rural areas are mainly affected by domestic sewage, and human activities, while suburbs are mainly affected by agricultural production (Sun et al. 2009 ; Qian et al. 2011 ; Shen et al. 2017 ). However, in recent years, the situation has developed in a good direction, and the Chongming district government pays more and more attention to river ecological environment protection and adheres to the priority of ecological protection, the green transformation of the industry, and has carried out a series of river ecological governance and restoration projects, the river ecological environment has changed (Zhang et al. 2013a , b ; Tian 2021 ; Xin 2022 ), in order to better manage the river, as well as build a world-class ecological island, it is necessary to assess the river ecological health status of Chongming Island that research results can provide a reference for river health management.

There is a wide divergence between different regions in terms of urban river characteristics in China which leads to the fact that river health assessment indicators and criteria for a city are not applicable elsewhere. So a regional river ecological health assessment system needs to consider the local actual situation to select the appropriate indicators and standards to establish. Taking into account the aforementioned considerations and in accordance with the concept of ecological health, we propose a definition of river health that draws upon commonly utilized river health indicators both domestically and internationally, while also considering the actual circumstances of the Yangtze Estuary. This definition comprises the following criteria. (1) Healthy river water quality that conforms to the corresponding water function standards, devoid of eutrophication, and without the risk of pollutant discharge into the water. (2) Healthy riverbank environments characterized by a certain level of vegetation coverage, capable of fulfilling ecological buffer functions, providing biological habitats, and contributing to aesthetic beauty and recreation. (3) Healthy aquatic organisms characterized by relatively rich species composition and population size, with a certain level of biodiversity. (4) A physically healthy river possessing a diverse and meandering flow state, maintaining a certain longitudinal continuity, and capable of preserving hydraulic connections without disrupting flood control. (5) The last healthy river received moderate human disturbance.

2 Study area and methodology

2.1 survey sites.

Chongming Island is located in the Yangtze Estuary and is surrounded by water, and the island is full of ditches and rivers, and the water system is rich, urban rivers and rural rivers are interconnected and run through the entire island, but they have their own characteristics (Fig.  1 ). Urban rivers serve the city and are often densely populated along the banks. Their main functions include flood control, drainage, transportation, recreation and entertainment, environmental improvement, coordination of urban development, and adjustment of local microclimates. In contrast, rural rivers often run through farmland, forests, and wasteland, mainly serving flood control, drainage, irrigation, domestic water supply, aquaculture, ecosystem restoration, and recreation and entertainment needs. In order to establish a more suitable and comprehensive river health assessment system for the Yangtze Estuary, we selected 6 river sections with different significance in Chongming Island. The S1 river section is located in the south-central part of Chongming Island, east–west trending, close to the densely populated Bao town (Fig.  1 ). It belongs to the urban type of river. The S2 river section is located in the northwest of Chongming island, with both sides of the distribution of ecological farmland and wetland park. It belongs to the countryside suburban rivers, less disturbed by a human. The S3 section of the river is located at the eastern end of Chongming Island, close to the Chongming Dongtan National Bird Sanctuary, with many ecological farms and wetland parks nearby, and it belongs to the countryside suburban rivers, less disturbed by a human. The S4 river section is located at the western end of Chongming Island, near Chongming Xisha National Wetland Park and Mingzhu Lake. Towns and Villages are scattered on both sides of the river, and the impact of human activities is more obvious. The S5 river section also passes through the densely populated area, but the river is north–south, connecting the north branch and the south branch. It belongs to the urban type of river. The water level of the Chongming inland river is flexibly regulated by way of water diversion from the south sluice and drainage from the north sluice. The S6 river section is located in the middle of Chongming Island, which is a small section, but it is connected with Huabo Cultural Park, which makes us very interested (Fig.  1 ). We carry out satellite remote sensing observations on these river sections to obtain data on the vegetation coverage of the river bank, the proportion of farmland area, the proportion of road area, and the proportion of building area to analyze the impact of human activities. And hydrological surveys such as river width, connectivity, and curvature were conducted on these river sections. In addition, we also select a site in each section of the river water quality, macrobenthos, zooplankton, and algae survey.

Locations of study areas showing river sections and sites, The blue line represents the river network formed by the rivers of Chongming Island

2.2 Survey and analytical methods

Drawing on Wu and Wang's research, 12 alternate indicators were selected, and the final indicators were determined after screening through correlation analysis and principal component analysis (Wu et al. 2006 ; Xu et al. 2022 ). The data is obtained as follows.

Water quality indicators were monitored in accordance with the Technical Specifications for Monitoring Surface Water and Sewage (HJ/T91-2002) (Fig.  2 a).

( a ) Collecting water samples; ( b ) Collecting phytoplankton samples; ( c ) Collecting zooplankton samples; ( d ) Preservation and fixation of samples; ( e ) Collecting macrobenthos samples; ( f ) Separating and screening samples; ( g ) Laboratory identification

Plankton survey methods are carried out in accordance with the Code for the Survey of Fishery Resources in Reservoirs (SL 167–2014). Three indicators were selected for a comprehensive evaluation, including the number of algae taxa, the Shannon–Wiener diversity index of algae, and the Berger–Parker dominance index of algae. The indicators were standardized first, and then, the arithmetic means the sum of the three indicators was calculated. Finally, get the Comprehensive index of phytoplankton diversity (Fig.  2 b, 2c, 2d).

Macrobenthos are obtained by 1/16 Peterson mud miners (large). Samples are fixed on-site (if desired) and then refrigerated and brought back to the laboratory for identification, counting, and biomass determination. The index integration method was the same as that of phytoplankton (Fig.  2 e, 2f, 2g).

The extent of vegetation cover and the impact of human activities on the banks is obtained by analyzing satellite remote sensing data.

The satisfaction degree of residents regarding the landscape close to the river and the degree and influence of river reconstruction were obtained by the method of questionnaire survey.

Data on vegetation coverage and human activities such as the proportion of coastal farmland area, the percentage of coastal hardened roads area, and the proportion of coastal buildings area are obtained from remote sensing imagery (Sentine-2 and SuperView-1).

The data of indicators in terms of the physical structure of rivers such as river width, connectivity, and river curvature obtained by field survey measurements.

2.3 Identification of index weight

There are many ways to determine the weight of river health assessment indicators (Geng et al. 2006 ; Gao et al. 2007 ; Wang et al 2007 ; Xia et al. 2007 ), While studying the quality evaluation of river habitats, Wang found that the evaluation system established by principal component analysis was more in line with the real situation (Wang et al. 2017 ). Therefore, this study uses the method of principal component analysis to determine the weight of the index. The specific methods are as follows. First, standardize the raw data. Standardization of raw data by minimum range standardization. Then, the correlation coefficient matrix and principal component model are established, the eigenvalues of the principal components of each index are obtained, and the weights of each index are derived. Of course, these calculations can be made with the statistical analysis software SPSS18.0.

2.4 River health assessment

The model of river health assessment is expressed as,

which \({I}_{CH}\) is the river health evaluation index; B i is standardized for river health indicator; W i is the weight of river health assessment indicator. River health standards are divided into five grades, 0.8–1 is excellent, 0.6–0.8 is good, 0.4–0.6 is ordinary, 0.2–0.4 is somewhat inferior, and 0–0.2 is inferior.

3 Results and analysis

3.1 assessment indicators.

In order to avoid overlapping between indicators, the indexes under assessment were further analyzed and selected based on applied correlation analysis and principal component analysis. According to the Pearson correlation coefficient of all indicators, most indicators did not have a significant correlation. Only a few indicators, such as the proportion of hardened roads are significantly negatively correlated with the satisfaction rate of citizens, and there is a significant positive correlation between vegetation coverage and citizen satisfaction, so the indexes of citizen satisfaction were deleted. Besides the proportion of farmland land has a significant positive correlation with water quality and the proportion of coastal buildings. In order to avoid overlapping, the index of the proportion of farmland and cultivated land is deleted.

From the weights of the indicators, we can see that indicators such as water quality, aquatic organisms, river connectivity, and river width play a major role in the comprehensive assessment of rivers (weight > 0.2) (Table 1 ), while indicators such as vegetation coverage and human impact play a lesser role (wight < 0.05). Furthermore, the indicators such as the index of macrobenthos diversity and the proportion of building area along the coast are negative indicators, that is, the larger their values, the smaller the comprehensive evaluation result of the river.

3.2 Comprehensive health index

We can see that there are two sites in summer, namely S2 and S3, the comprehensive health index is greater than 80, reaching a very excellent level, only the S6 site is somewhat inferior level (Fig.  3 ). In the autumn, the comprehensive health index of most sites is in the good and ordinary level, and no site reaches the excellent level, so the overall comprehensive health evaluation results in summer are better than those in autumn. In summer, the comprehensive results of each site are quite different, while the difference in autumn is reduced, which is more similar to the results of the site.

Results of the comprehensive river health assessment at each site, S1 to S6 represent different river sections

In addition, we can also see that, regardless of summer or autumn, the comprehensive health evaluation results of S2 and S3 are the best, while S6 is the worst.

Comparing the comprehensive evaluation results in summer and autumn, it can be found that there are large changes between S1 and S2. By analyzing the radar map of S1, we can find that the increase in phytoplankton diversity and zooplankton diversity leads to an increase in comprehensive results in autumn than in summer (Fig.  4 , Fig.  5 ). By analyzing the radar map of S1, we can find that the increase in negative indicators of macrobenthos diversity, and the reduction of zooplankton diversity lead to an increase in comprehensive results in autumn than in summer (Fig.  4 , Fig.  5 ).

Score distribution of different indexes of the river section in summer. The indicators represented by each letter have the following meanings ( a ) Vegetation coverage; ( b ) River connectivity;( c ) River width; ( d ) Phytoplankton diversity; ( e ) Zooplankton diversity; ( f ) Macrobenthos diversity; ( g ) Proportion of building area; ( h ) River winding rate; ( i ) Proportion of hardened area;( j ) Water quality

Score distribution of different indexes of the river section in autumn, the index represented by each letter is the same as above

4 Discussion

In river health evaluation, the determination of weight is one of the important links. Once the weight deviates, it will directly lead to incorrect evaluation results and cannot match the actual situation. In the past river health evaluation, single-factor evaluation was performed on different indicators or a simple summation of multiple factors was performed, resulting in inaccurate results (Kleynhans 1996 ; Hao 2014 ). As a reliable weight determination method, principal component analysis is widely used in various evaluations (Yang et al. 2015 ; Shen et al. 2020 ; Zou et al. 2021 ), and Wang’s study found that the results calculated by the principal component analysis method are more scientific and more reasonable than the entropy weight method (Wang et al. 2017 ). Therefore, in this study, principal component analysis was used to calculate the weights. Through this method, ten indicators related to the comprehensive health evaluation of Chongming River were screened out (Table 1 ), and their respective weights were calculated. These weight of indicators are consistent with the research results of Su ( 2019 ) and Wu ( 2006 ). The assessment system can be successfully applied to the Chongming Island river health assessment, indicating that the assessment system is applicable to the river system in the Yangtze Estuary. In addition, a total of ten secondary indicators were selected in the evaluation system in this study. Compared with 17 indicators in Wu's study and 17 indicators in Xu's study, it is simpler and more convenient in practical application (Wu et al. 2006 ; Xu et al. 2022 ).

The evaluation model of this study not only screened out the indicators such as water quality, aquatic organisms, river connectivity, and river width that have an important impact on the overall health of the river but also comprehensively considered the impact of vegetation coverage and human impact. Because Chongming Island not only has relatively concentrated urbanized townships but also many farmland and countryside which is also a characteristic of the river ecosystem in the Yangtze Estuary, the general urban river health assessment model or mountain river model is not applicable here. So adding indicators such as human activities can better reflect the real situation and are more conducive to the later ecological management of rivers.

In addition, the weights of benthic biodiversity indicators and the proportion of building area in this model are negative, which is rare in other models. First of all, the construction area along the coast is negatively correlated with the health of the river, which is easy to understand. The larger the proportion of building area, the denser the population in this area, and the greater the negative impact of human activities such as water abstraction and sewage discharge on the river. According to the research findings of Ge et al. ( 2022 ) the degree of land use is the main factor affecting ecosystem health and the impact of the proportion of construction land on ecosystem health increases over time. The layout used in urban land use planning has a significant impact on ecosystem health. While the negative correlation between benthic indicators and river health is mainly because the benthic organisms in this study area are mainly fouling-tolerant benthic organisms. The more fouling-resistant benthic organisms, the worse the health of the river (Deng et al. 2005 ; Wang et al. 2012 a, 2012 b, Hooper et al. 2013 ). Negative weights rarely appear in the research of other scholars, because they have especially standardized these negative indicators in advance (Wang et al. 2017 ). However, this will reduce the differences between sites and the results are not so intuitive. In order to ensure accuracy and scientific research, this study does not make special treatment for these negative indicators. To enhance the ecological health of rivers, it is essential to develop a rational riparian land use plan that regulates coastal construction and minimizes disturbances. Additionally, strict control measures should be enforced to prevent sewage discharge and domestic waste dumping into the river. Regular dredging of the river should also be conducted to mitigate sludge deposition.

In addition, the weights of the comprehensive water quality index, river connectivity, river width, comprehensive index of zooplankton diversity, the composite index of macrobenthos diversity, and comprehensive index of phytoplankton diversity are relatively high, which indicates that these indexes play an important role in river health assessment of the Yangtze Estuary. Therefore, more attention should be paid to these indexes.

Analysis of different research sites shows that the integrated assessment results of rural rivers S3 and S2 are the best (Fig.  3 ), which contradicts Jiang's research—the conclusion that the eutrophication of the northern water body of Chongming Island is more serious. The reason is that Jiang's research only takes the single dimension of nutrients as the starting point of the research (Jiang et al. 2019 ). In the comprehensive assessment of river health, a single indicator cannot be used. For example, if only considering the impact of human activities, the southern part of Chongming Island's result will be the worst with urbanization, the existence of more garbage floating objects, the high proportion of building areas, and the evaluation of a high degree of river bank solidification (Xu et al. 2005 ; Wang et al. 2021 ). However, this is not the case, river health assessment needs to consider multi-dimensional indicators (Peng et al. 2014 ), for example, S2 has higher vegetation coverage, river curvature, river width, and diversity of zooplankton and phytoplankton, so the comprehensive S2 evaluation result will be high, and the comparison is in line with the actual situation (Fig.  4 , Fig.  5 ). When studying the seasonal differences at these two sites, it was found that the water quality assessment score of S3 in autumn was lower (Fig.  4 , Fig.  5 ), which may be due to the influence of autumn agricultural harvesting activities. After the autumn harvest, there is a large amount of straw in the farmland, and returning the straw to the soil will increase the content of nitrate nitrogen in the soil. This will be washed into the river by rainwater, thereby affecting the water quality (Zhao et al. 2010 ). Although S2 also belongs to rural rivers, the S2 river is not directly connected to farmland but is separated by forest, vegetation, etc. The low score of the benthic biota index in S2 indicates that the sediment pollution in this river is more severe. In response to this situation, regular cleaning and dredging of the river should be carried out. Similarly, the comprehensive score of S6, which is also a rural river, is the worst. This is because the river is narrow, with poor connectivity and sediment accumulation. In addition, it is connected to the HuaBo Cultural Park, and the construction of HuaBo Cultural Park and a large number of tourists will have a negative impact on the health of the river. Therefore, it can be seen that when carrying out rural river management, it is necessary to retain buffer zones such as trees and vegetation on both sides of the river, improve connectivity, appropriately widen narrow rivers, regularly clean and dredge rivers, and reduce human activities that interfere with river health. Compared to rural rivers, urban rivers (S1, S4, and S5) show a generally average performance in a comprehensive evaluation. The high proportion of building area on both sides of the river and the low coverage of vegetation are the main factors limiting the evaluation results. Therefore, it is recommended to improve the health of urban rivers by rational planning of urban riverbank buildings and increasing vegetation coverage.

As for the seasonal differences of each site, the diversity of zooplankton, phytoplankton, and macrobenthos. For example, the autumn assessment results of S1 have improved compared with summer, mainly due to the increase in the diversity of zooplankton and phytoplankton, The assessment result of S2 in autumn is lower than that in summer, mainly because the diversity of macrobenthos is increased, which is a negative indicator, so the results of S2 in autumn are lower. The difference between the stations decreased in autumn, and the main reason may be related to the regulation system of "absorbing water in spring and draining in autumn" in the river channel of Chongming Island (Zhang et al. 2013a , b ; Pang et al. 2016 ) because the rivers of Chongming Island are connected to each other, the large-scale drainage and water exchange in autumn reduces the difference between the stations. The evaluation results of S6 were the worst, mainly because the diversity of zooplankton, phytoplankton, and benthic organisms were all low, which shows that the diversity of zooplankton, phytoplankton, and benthic organisms is particularly important in river health assessment. When monitoring and ecological restoration should focus on these indicators.

5 Conclusions

This study constructed an ecological health assessment method for the Yangtze Estuary and applied it to the Chongming Island river network. The main conclusions are as follows.a) According to the characteristics of the rivers in the Yangtze River estuary, an ecological health assessment system suitable for the rivers in the Yangtze River estuary was constructed with five dimensions including water quality, river landscape, aquatic organisms, river hydrology, and human interference, and ten indexes including comprehensive water quality index, vegetation coverage, the proportion of building area along the coast, comprehensive index of zooplankton diversity, the composite index of macrobenthos diversity, comprehensive index of phytoplankton diversity, river connectivity, river winding rate, river width, the proportion of hardened area along the coast.b) The ecological health assessment system is applied to quantify the river health on Chongming Island. The evaluation results showed that the health of rural rivers in the northwest and east of Chongming Island (S2, S3) was the best, reaching an excellent level, while the central rural river (S6) was the worst, ranging somewhat inferior level. The assessment of urban rivers reached the good or ordinary level. Overall, the summer river health assessment results were better than those in autumn on Chongming Island, with slightly greater differences between locations in summer than in autumn. The seasonal differences at different locations were mainly due to changes in the diversity of plankton, phytoplankton, and benthic fauna indicators. These indicators should be given special attention in monitoring and ecological restoration.c) Based on the results of this study, it is recommended to adopt different measures for managing and restoring urban and rural rivers, taking into account their respective characteristics. In urban rivers, it is required to improve their health by rationalizing the planning of buildings along the river and increasing vegetation coverage. For rural rivers, it is better to preserve buffer zones such as forests and vegetation along the riverbanks, improve the connectivity of the river, widen narrow river sections as appropriate, and carry out regular dredging to reduce human interference on the health of the river.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Haifei Yang for his assistance in collecting field data and doing laboratory analysis. Two anonymous reviewers are thanked for their critical and constructive comments on the original manuscript.

This study was financially supported by the Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (2019–01-07–00-05-E00027), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U2240220), the Open Research Fund of Key Laboratory of Ocean Space Resource Management Technology (KF-2022–105), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2021M691023).

Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission,2019-01-07-00-05-E00027,Ya Ping Wang,National Natural Science Foundation of China,U2240220,Ya Ping Wang,Key Laboratory of Ocean Space Resource Management Technology，MNR,KF-2022-105,Benwei Shi

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Study conception and design were conducted by Lei Mo, Anglu Shen, and Yifan Ding. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Mo, Anglu Shen, Yifan Ding, Biaobiao Peng, Jingjing Li, Xinmiao Zhang and Xiaoyu Liu. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Biaobiao Peng, Benwei Shi and Ya Ping Wang, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Peng, B., Shi, B., Wang, Y.P. et al. Establishment and application of ecological health evaluation system for urban and rural rivers in Yangtze Estuary. Anthropocene Coasts 6 , 9 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44218-023-00024-8

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CHAPTER ONE Russia in the Age of Peter the Great By LINDSEY HUGHES Yale University Press Read the Review I

I. RUSSIA IN 1672

Russian Bethlehem, Kolomenskoe, You delivered Peter to the light! You the start and source of all our joy, Where Russia's greatness first burned clear and bright.

Peter Alekseevich Romanov was born in or near Moscow at around one in the morning on Thursday 30 May 1672. A patron saint's `measuring' icon of the apostle Peter made shortly after his birth showed the infant to be nineteen and a quarter inches long. The future emperor's exceptional height was clearly prefigured, but the time and place of his birth, like much else in his life, have been the subject of controversy. For want of concrete evidence locating it elsewhere, the event may be placed in the Kremlin in Moscow, but legends persist, as in the verse by the poet Sumarokov above, that Peter was born in the village of Kolomenskoe to the south of Moscow, where his father had built a wooden palace, or even in Preobrazhenskoe, which later became Peter's favourite retreat and the base for his new guards regiments, formed from the `play' troops of his boyhood. As for the date, most sources accept 30 May, as did Peter himself by honouring St Isaac of Dalmatia, whose feast falls on that day. But at least one record gives 29 May, following the old Russian practice of starting the new day not at midnight but at dawn.4 In those countries which had adopted the Gregorian calendar (which Russia did only in 1918) the date was ten days ahead of those which still followed the older, Julian calendar, and 30 May fell on 9 June. Contemporary Russian chroniclers (using not arabic numerals but Cyrillic letters with numerical equivalents) recorded the year of Peter's birth as not 1672 but 7180, following the Byzantine practice of numbering years from the notional creation of the world in 5509 BC. The year 7181 began on 1 September 1672, which, following the usage of Constantinople, marked the start of the Muscovite new year.

    These peculiarities of time and record keeping provide a foretaste of the different customs observed in the Russia where Peter was born and the West into which he was later to forge a `window'. On the eve of the new century, in December 1699, Peter himself decreed that official records would henceforth adopt calendar years from the birth of Christ in the manner of `many European Christian nations'. When he died on 28 January 1725, there were no arguments about how the date should be recorded. It is appropriate that questions of time and chronology should arise at the outset of Peter's life, for he was to be obsessed with time and its passing, believing that `wasted time, like death, cannot be reversed'. Traditionalists denounced the tsar for tampering with `God's time' by changing the calendar. There were even rumours that the Peter who was to adopt the title `emperor' in 1721 was not the Peter who had been born in 1672. We shall return to these matters later, but let us take a closer look at the Russia into which Peter was born.

    Peter's parents had been married for less than eighteen months when he arrived. On 22 January 1671 nineteen-year-old Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina married forty-two-year-old Tsar Alexis (Aleksei) Mikhailovich, whose first wife Maria Miloslavskaia had died in 1669 at the age of forty-three after giving birth to her thirteenth child, a girl who did not survive. Given a more robust set of male half-siblings, Peter might never have come to the throne at all. His father's first marriage produced five sons, but in 1672 only two were still alive. The heir apparent, Fedor, born in 1661, had delicate health, while Ivan, born in 1666, was mentally and physically handicapped. There were six surviving half-sisters: Evdokia, Marfa, Sophia, Ekaterina, Maria, and Feodosia, ranging in age from twenty-two to ten. They were not regarded as direct contenders for power: no woman had ever occupied the Muscovite throne in her own right, and the policy of keeping the royal princesses unmarried minimized the complications of power-seeking in-laws and inconvenient offspring through the female line. The practice of keeping well-born women in virtual seclusion also meant that they were unknown to the public.

    When Tsar Alexis died at the age of forty-seven in January 1676, Fedor succeeded him without the formal appointment of a regent, even though he was only fourteen. (Rumours of attempts to place three-year-old Peter on the throne in his stead may be discounted.) Twice in the next six years Peter narrowly escaped being pushed further down the ladder of succession. Fedor's first wife, Agafia Grushetskaia, and her newborn son Il'ia died in July 1681. His second wife, Marfa Matveevna Apraksina, was left a widow after only two months of marriage, by Fedor's death in April 1682. Rumours that she might be pregnant proved unfounded. But this is to leap ahead. In 1672 there was every prospect of Tsar Alexis continuing to rule for many years, and a fair chance, given infant mortality rates, that Peter would not survive for long. Modern readers will treat with scepticism the intriguing story recorded by one of Peter's early biographers to the effect that the royal tutor and court poet Simeon Polotsky predicted Peter's rule and future greatness by the stars on the supposed day of his conception, 11 August 1671.

    Many pages of print have been devoted to Peter's childhood and adolescence. His first two decades will be considered here only briefly, in order to give a context for the changes which he later forced upon Russia--the main subject of this book. I will begin by dispelling a few misconceptions, such as that Peter's early environment was closed and stultifying, dominated solely by Orthodox ritual and concepts. In fact, seventeenth-century Romanov childrearing practices did not exclude `modern' elements. For example, Peter's interest in military affairs was stimulated in the nursery, where he, like his elder brothers before him, played with toy soldiers, cannon, bows and arrows, and drums. Military affairs were the right and proper concern of a tsar almost from the cradle. His father had gone to war with his troops, as Peter was well aware and was proud to recall in later life. On the other hand, Peter's prowess as a soldier, virtually from the cradle (a contemporary compared him to the young Hercules, who strangled serpents), has been greatly exaggerated. The myth that Peter was already a cadet at the age of three has been refuted: in fact, at that age, Peter still had a wet-nurse. Toy weapons were supplemented by spades, hammers, and masons' tools, which no doubt fostered Peter's love of mechanical crafts. The fiercest of Peter's boyhood passions--his love of ships and the sea--is at first sight harder to explain. Why should a boy raised in a virtually land-locked country with no tradition of seafaring have developed such a passion? It is even said that as a boy Peter had a dread of water. But Russia's naval inexperience should not be exaggerated. Most major Russian towns were situated on rivers, which small craft plied. Russians may not have been expert sailors on the high seas, but they knew how to navigate inland waters, and Russian peasant navigators had long sailed the northern coastline. Peter did not see the open sea until he was twenty-one, but there was no lack of stimuli to the imagination closer to hand: toy boats, maps and engravings, and, what he himself identified as the spark which lit the flame, the old English sailing dinghy, the `grandfather of the Russian fleet', which he discovered in the outhouse of a country estate. The fact that it should have found its way to Moscow is not so surprising when one considers that English sea-going vessels had been docking on the White Sea since the 1550s, and that Tsar Alexis had commissioned Dutch shipwrights to build a small fleet on the Caspian Sea in the 1660s.

    In some respects, however, Peter's introduction to the wider world actually lagged behind that of his half-siblings. His brothers Fedor and Alexis (who died in 1670), and even his half-sister Sophia, were taught by the Polish-educated monk Simeon Polotsky, who gave instruction in Latin, Polish, versification, and other elements of the classical syllabus. Polotsky died in 1680, before he had the chance, had it been offered, to tutor Peter. His protege, Silvester Medvedev, was at daggers drawn with the conservative patriarch, Joachim, who, as adviser to Peter's mother, would scarcely have recommended a suspect `Latinizer' as the tsarevich's tutor. Peter thus received indifferent tuition from Russians seconded from government chancelleries; they included Nikita Zotov and Afanasy Nesterov, an official in the Armoury, whose names first appear in records as teachers round about 1683. Not only did Peter's education lack scholarly content; it also seems to have been deficient in basic discipline. His prose style, spelling, and handwriting bore signs of lax methods for the rest of his life. It should be added that there was no question of Peter receiving his education from a Muscovite university graduate or even from the product of a local grammar school or its equivalent. There were no universities in Muscovite Russia and no public schools, apart from some training establishments for chancellery staff in the Kremlin. In fact, clerks ( d'iaki and pod'iachie ) and clerics were the only two orders of Muscovite society who were normally literate, many parish priests being only barely so.

    The inadequacies of Peter's primary education were later offset by practical skills learned from foreigners, whom he was able to encounter in Moscow thanks to the policies of his predecessors. Foreigner-specialists first started arriving in Muscovy in significant numbers during the reign of Ivan IV (1533-84). Their numbers increased when Peter's grandfather, Tsar Michael (1613-45), reorganized certain Russian infantry regiments along foreign lines. In 1652 Tsar Alexis set aside a separate area of Moscow called the `New Foreign' or `German' Quarter to accommodate military, commercial, and diplomatic personnel. It was here that Peter encountered officers such as Patrick Gordon, Franz Lefort, and Franz Timmerman, his teachers and companions in the 1680s and 1690s. Residents of the Foreign Quarter also made their mark on Russian elite culture. From the 1650s several foreign painters were employed in the royal Armoury workshops. Alexis is the first Russian ruler of whom we have a reliable likeness, his daughter Sophia the first Russian woman to be the subject of secular portraiture. It was the Foreign Quarter which in 1672 supplied the director and actors for Russia's first theatrical performance. Unlike portraiture, however, which quickly became more widespread, theatricals were discontinued after Alexis's death. During Sophia's regency (1682-9) Huguenots were offered sanctuary in Russia, Jesuits were admitted to serve Moscow's foreign Catholic parish, and invitations were issued to foreign industrialists and craftsmen. In the 1670s and 1680s foreigners were no longer a rarity on the streets of Moscow, and were also well represented in commercial towns on the route from the White Sea port of Archangel.

    Of course, Moscow was not the whole of Russia, any more than a few relatively outward-looking individuals in the Kremlin were representative of Moscow society as a whole. Most Muscovites, from the conservative boyars who rubbed shoulders with them to the peasants who rarely encountered one, regarded foreigners as dangerous heretics, and viewed foreign `novelties' and fashions with intense suspicion and even terror. During the reign of Peter's immediate predecessors, foreigners were still in Russia on sufferance, tolerated as a necessary evil. The building of the new Foreign Quarter in 1652 was actually an attempt to concentrate foreigners and their churches in a restricted locality, away from the city centre, where they had lived previously. Patriarch Joachim urged that mercenaries, the most indispensable of foreign personnel, be expelled, and non-Orthodox churches demolished. Russian culture was prevented from falling further under foreign influence by strict controls. For example, publishing and printing remained firmly in the hands of the Church. It is a striking statistic that in the whole of the seventeenth century fewer than ten secular titles came off Muscovite presses, which were devoted mainly to the production of liturgical and devotional texts. There were no Russian printed news-sheets, journals or almanacs; no plays, poetry or philosophy in print, although this lack was partly compensated by popular literature in manuscript, a flourishing oral tradition, news-sheets from abroad (albeit restricted to the use of personnel in the Foreign Office), and foreign books in the libraries of a few leading nobles and clerics. Presses in Kiev, Chernigov, Vilna, and other centres of Orthodoxy supplemented the meagre output of Moscow printers. Russians were still clearly differentiated from Western Europeans by their dress, although a number were tempted by Polish influence to don Western fashions in private. According to Tsar Alexis's decree of 1675, `Courtiers are forbidden to adopt foreign, German ( inozemskikh i nemetskikh ) and other customs, to cut the hair on their heads and to wear robes, tunics and hats of foreign design, and they are to forbid their servants to do so.'

    The `courtiers' to whom this warning was addressed formed the upper echelons of Russia's service class. Sometimes loosely referred to as `boyars', roughly the equivalent of the Western aristocracy, they belonged to noble clans residing in and around Moscow. The upper crust were the `men of the council' ( dumnye liudi ), the so-called boyar duma, which in the seventeenth century varied in number from 28 to 153 members. Those in the top rank were the boyars proper ( boiare ), next the `lords in waiting' ( okol'nichie ), followed by a smaller group dubbed `gentlemen of the council' ( dumnye dvoriane ), and a handful of `clerks of the council' ( dumnye d'iaki ). All enjoyed the privilege of attending and advising the tsar. Membership of the two top groups was largely hereditary. Unless there were contrary indicators (e.g., serious incapacity or disgrace) men from leading families generally became boyars in order of seniority within their clan. Their numbers were swelled by royal in-laws (marrying a daughter to the tsar or one of his sons usually boosted a family's fortunes) and by a handful of men of lower status who were raised by royal favour. The council's participation in decision making is indicated by the formula for ratifying edicts: `the tsar has decreed and the boyars have affirmed' ( tsar' ukazal i boiare prigovorili ). Nobles immediately below the `men of the council' (often younger aspirants to the grade) bore the title `table attendant' ( stol'nik ), a reference to duties which they had once performed and in some cases still did. Below them were `attendants' ( striapchie ), Moscow nobles ( dvoriane moskovskie ), and `junior attendants' ( zhil'tsy ). In peacetime Moscow nobles performed a variety of chancellery and ceremonial duties. In wartime they went on campaign as cavalry officers. On duty, be it military or civil, they bore their court ranks: boiarin, okol'nichii, stol'nik and so on; there was no differentiation by office.

    In 1672 commissions, appointments, and other placings, such as seating at important banquets, were still in theory governed by the code of precedence, or `place' system ( mestnichestvo ), which determined an individual's position in the hierarchy of command by calculations based on his own and his clan's service record and his seniority within his clan. It was considered a great dishonour to be placed below someone who, regardless of ability, was deemed to merit a lower `place'. Such an insult gave grounds for an appeal to the tsar. Increasingly, mestnichestvo was suspended in order to allow the Crown a freer hand in appointing officers. For some campaigns it was ordered that military rolls be drawn up `without places' ( bez mest ).

    With the exception of members of the elite sent to serve as provincial governors ( voevody ), outside Moscow the ruler relied on a larger group of the `middle servicemen', provincial gentry ( gorodovye dvoriane ), and `junior servicemen' ( deti boairskie , literally and misleadingly `children of boyars') to perform policing duties and swell the ranks of the army in wartime. All the categories described above, it should be repeated, were counted among the elite and enjoyed certain privileges, the first of which was exemption from tax and labour burdens ( tiaglo ). The second was the right to land and serfs. Most of the Moscow elite owned both inherited estates ( votchiny ) and service lands ( pomest'ia ), the latter, in theory, granted and held on condition of service, but increasingly passed from generation to generation. The peasants living on both votchina and pomest'e holdings were serfs, the property of their landlords, who could freely exploit their labour (in the form of agricultural work and other duties) and collect dues (in money and kind). It should be noted, however, that nobles were not automatically supplied with serfs. Some of the top families owned tens of thousands of peasants distributed over dozens of estates, whereas many in the provincial deti boiarskie category owned only one or two peasant households, and in some cases worked their own plots. The Muscovite Crown also deployed non-noble servicemen ( sluzhilye liudi po priboru ). Men in this category were subject to a service, not a tax requirement, but they could not own serfs. They included the strel'tsy (`musketeers'), who formed army units in wartime and did escort and guard duty in peacetime, carrying on small businesses and trades when off duty; artillerymen ( pushkari ), and postal drivers ( iamshchiki ). Civilian personnel in the non-noble service category included secretaries and clerks ( d'iaki, pod'iachie ), the backbone personnel of the government chancelleries.

    Most of the non-noble residents of Russia's towns were bound to their communities by tax obligations, apart from a handful of chief merchants ( gosti ), who dealt in foreign trade. Including merchants of the second and third grades ( gostinnye and sukonnye sotni ) and the mass of clerks, artisans, and traders, or `men of the posad ' ( posadskie liudi ), the total registered male urban population in the 1670s has been estimated at 185,000. In addition, substantial numbers of peasants resided temporarily in towns, which also had shifting populations of foreigners and vagrants, but lacked many of the native professional categories--bankers, scholars, scientists, doctors, schoolteachers, lawyers, and actors--to be found in most contemporary Western European towns of any size.

    If townspeople were less numerous and played a less prominent role in Muscovy than they did in Western European countries, the opposite was probably true of church personnel. The Russian clerical estate was divided into `white' (secular) and `black' (monastic) clergy, the former group, consisting of parish priests and deacons, who were obliged to marry. The prelates--the patriarch, metropolitans, bishops, and abbots of monasteries--were drawn from the celibate black clergy, who also formed the monastic rank and file. The ecclesiastical estate enjoyed considerable privileges. Apart from the royal family and the nobles, only they could own serfs (although, strictly speaking, peasants were attached to monasteries and churches, not individuals). They were exempt from taxation. They had access to church courts. But the rural clergy, like the lesser rural gentry, were often barely differentiated in wealth and education from the mass of the population.

    This brings us to the masses themselves: rural dwellers engaged in working the land-- pashennye liudi . Roughly 50 per cent were serfs or bonded peasants, living on lands owned by the royal family ( dvortsovye ), nobles ( pomeshchichie ), or the Church ( tserkovnye ). The rest were `State' peasants ( gosudarsvennye ), not bound to any one landlord, but obliged to pay taxes to the State and perform labour duties as required--for example, by providing transport and carrying out forestry and road work. All were eligible for military service, which freed them from obligations to their former owners. Another group of `unfree' persons were slaves, who entered into contracts of bondage with richer people (usually, but not invariably, nobles) in return for loans and support. It has been calculated that as much as 10 per cent of the population may have fallen into this category.

    Thus, in 1672, it was possible to divide the great majority of people in Muscovy into those who performed service ( sluzhilye liudi ), those who paid taxes ( tiaglye liudi ), and those who served the Church ( tserkovnye liudi ). They included the tsar's non-Russian subjects: various tribespeople who rendered taxes in the form of tribute ( iasak , often in furs) or did occasional military service. Some of the tsar's subjects fell outside these estates: these included socalled wandering people ( guliashchie liudi ) unattached to any locality or category, who were either incapable of performing service or paying taxes--for example, cripples and `fools in Christ'--or who wilfully escaped obligations--runaway serfs, deserters, and religious dissidents, of which the biggest category were the Old Believers, protesters against Nikon's church reform of the 1650s. A number set up communities in remote localities out of reach of the government. Cossack communities, consisting originally of refugees from the long arm of government, maintained a variety of links with Moscow, being either bound in service, like the registered Cossacks of Ukraine, intermittently loyal, like the Cossacks of the Don, or persistently hostile, like the Host of the Zaporozhian Sich.

    This, then, was the Russia into which Peter was born, a country, on the one hand, deeply rooted in tradition and in many ways very distinct from Western Europe, where Russia was still regarded as a `rude and barbarous' kingdom, on the other, increasingly open to the influence of Western people and ideas. In the year 1672 the birth of a Russian prince went more or less unnoticed in the rest of Europe, of which Russia was at best a fringe member. There would have been scarcely any speculation about the new prince's eligibility as a marriage partner, since the Muscovite royal family was known to be uninterested in such foreign involvements, although this had not always been the case. The concept of the European community as `a single, integral system of mutually interdependent states', which came into being after the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, rested on a Protestant-Catholic balance of power in which Orthodox countries barely figured. But Russia was poised to play an increasingly active role in world affairs. In the reign of Alexis, during the socalled First Northern War (1654-60), it entered the wider sphere of international relations when it was pitted against its old enemies Poland and Sweden. War with Poland began in 1654, as a result of Moscow's provocative acceptance of the allegiance of Ukrainian (Little Russian) Cossacks under their leader Bogdan Khmel'nitsky, who were formerly Polish subjects, and ended in 1667 to Russia's advantage, with Left Bank Ukraine (to the east of the River Dnieper) and Kiev brought under the tsar's rule. But there was no progress during the shorter conflict of 1656-61 with Sweden, which had blocked the way to the Baltic since the 1617 Treaty of Stolbovo removed Moscow's narrow foothold on that sea. At the time Sweden's King Gustav Adolph boasted that Russia could not even launch a rowing boat on to the sea without Sweden's permission. When Peter was born, Russia's only seaport was Archangel, on the White Sea. In the south, Russia and Poland vied for possession and domination of the steppes with the Turks and the Crimean Tatars, who barred Russia from the Black Sea. Direct conflict was usually with the Tatars, who exacted a heavy toll of prisoners and livestock, as well as demanding and receiving annual tribute, known as `gifts'. In 1672 the Turks and the Tatars seized parts of Polish (Right Bank) Ukraine, and threatened incursions across the Dnieper into Muscovite territory. It was this crisis which prompted Tsar Alexis to send envoys all over Europe seeking aid for an anti-Turkish league. In 1676 his son Fedor found himself at war with the Turks and the Tatars. After losing the fort at Chigirin on the Dnieper, and fearing a Turkish attack on Kiev, Moscow made an uneasy twenty-year truce with the Tatars at Bakhchisarai, in January 1681.

II. SOPHIA: THE 1680s

On 27 April 1682 Fedor died childless. The same day, Peter, a month short of his tenth birthday, was declared tsar, on the grounds that his elder half-brother Ivan was `weak-minded'. Matters might have rested there. Ivan's afflictions evidently precluded him from taking an active role in civil or military affairs. There was no written law of succession to rule out the accession of a younger brother under these circumstances. Observance of primogeniture was a matter of custom rather than constitution. Peter's accession had the support of the patriarch, who intervened in such matters in the absence of mature royal males. But Peter's maternal relatives, the Naryshkins, and their hangers-on, who could expect to enjoy considerable power in Peter's minority and to retain key government posts when he came of age, had not reckoned on a lethal combination of unrest among Moscow's armed guard, the strel'tsy, and the fury of the affronted Miloslavskys, kinsmen of Tsar Alexis's first wife, led by Ivan's sister Sophia, that `ambitious and power-hungry princess', as a contemporary described her.

    The Miloslavskys succeeded in harnessing the strel'tsy, who were ultrasensitive to rumours of abuses in high places as a result of a series of disputes over management, pay, and conditions dating from Fedor's reign. After two weeks of negotiations, during which the new Naryshkin government made concessions, to the extent of handing over unpopular officers to strel'tsy mobs, a rumour that Tsarevich Ivan had been strangled by his `ill-wishers' brought rebel regiments to the Kremlin. There on 15-17 May, the strel'tsy settled personal grudges by butchering commanding officers and unpopular officials, and, at the instigation of the Naryshkins' rivals, singled out members of the Naryshkin clan and their associates as `traitors', and slaughtered them. The victims included Peter's uncle, Ivan Naryshkin (who was accused of trying on the crown), and his mother's guardian, the former foreign minister Artamon Matveev, who was accused of plotting to murder Ivan. In all, about forty persons fell victim to axe and pike. The role in all this of Sophia, Peter's twenty-five-year-old half-sister, has been widely debated. Although there is little hard evidence that she had the `Machiavellian' tendencies attributed to her by some writers, still less that she plotted to kill Peter and his mother (who remained unharmed, despite being the easiest of targets), the events of April-May 1682 undoubtedly allowed her to champion the legitimate claim to the throne of her brother Ivan and to emerge as regent over a joint tsardom, with Ivan as senior tsar and Peter as junior.

    No attempt will be made here to chart the further outbreaks of strel'tsy unrest after the dynastic question had apparently been settled, or to examine the role of Prince Ivan Khovansky in the events of May-September 1682, sometimes referred to as the `Khovanshchina', which were complicated by the activities of Old Believers, who enjoyed some support from the strel'tsy. We shall be concerned only with those events and features of Sophia's regency which had relevance for Peter's future policies and reforms. The most immediate consequence of the seven-year regency on Peter's own circumstances was that he was by and large relieved of ceremonial duties, which Sophia was happy to have performed at first by Ivan, who was thus given a prominent, active role in the public eye, and later by herself. It is difficult to overestimate the significance of these seven years for Peter's development. They may be regarded as a sort of `sabbatical' from the routine burdens of rulership, which allowed him to pursue his own interests (military games and sailing) and to build up a circle of friends and assistants at a slight distance from traditional clan networks. Members of the boyar elite predominated in Peter's circle, but foreigners and men of lower rank appeared in greater numbers than in the past. Ivan's role as Orthodox figure-head meant that Peter had less contact with the church hierarchy. It should be emphasized that Peter was neither banished nor persecuted. As for the charge that Sophia `stifled Peter's natural light', rather the opposite was true, although some contemporaries believed that lax supervision and too much contact with foreigners and `low' types ruined the tsar's character. On occasion he was still required to do ceremonial duty--for example, at ambassadorial receptions and important family anniversaries--but by and large his being out of Moscow suited him as much as it did Sophia. If it had one unfortunate effect, it is that it further alienated Peter from Sophia's chief minister and reputed lover, Prince Vasily Vasil'evich Golitsyn (1643-1714), a man with the sort of talent and vision that Peter could have used, had not hostility towards his sister made it impossible later to employ someone so close to her. Under Golitsyn's direction, the Foreign Office pursued policies which provided both foundations and lessons for Peter's future programme. The major achievement was the 1686 treaty of permanent peace with Poland, which ratified the secession of Kiev and its Right Bank hinterland to Moscow (which had been in dispute since the 1667 Treaty of Andrusovo), and Russian rule over Smolensk, Dorogobuzh, Roslavl', and Zaporozh'e. In return, Russia was to pay the Poles 146,000 roubles indemnity `out of friendship', to sever relations with Turkey and Crimea `on account of the many wrongs committed by the Muslims, in the name of Christianity and to save many Christians held in servitude', and to wage war on Crimea. Other clauses included a ban on the persecution of Orthodox Christians in Poland by Catholics and Uniates (thus allowing the tsar a pretext for intervention), permission for Catholics in Russia to hold divine worship (but only in private houses), recognition of royal titles, encouragement of trade, and a pledge to seek the aid of `other Christian monarchs'. Russian suspicion of Catholics was exploited by Prussian envoys in Moscow, who induced Golitsyn and Sophia to offer sanctuary to Protestant exiles from France. In 1689 commercial treaties were signed allowing Prussia trading rights in Archangel, Smolensk, and Pskov, thereby laying the foundations for future Russo-Prussian co-operation during the 1710s.

    Thus Russia joined the Holy League against the Turks, formed in 1684 with papal backing, between Austria and Poland, both of which had lands bordering on the Ottoman Empire, and Venice, Russia's rival at sea, following the relief of the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683. Russian ambassadors were dispatched all over Europe with appeals for assistance and closer alliance--to Holland, England, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, France, Spain, Florence, Austria, and Venice. In 1687 and 1689 Vasily Golitsyn led huge armies south to Crimea. On both occasions logistical problems forced the Russian armies to withdraw, on the second occasion with huge losses of men and horses, from thirst and epidemics. Golitsyn's return to Moscow in the summer of 1689, where he was feted as a hero on Sophia's instructions, gave his opponents an opportunity to undermine both him and Sophia, whose public appearances Peter (prompted by his maternal relatives) had begun to criticize. Peter was well into his majority (Fedor, it will be recalled, was tsar without a regent at the age of fourteen); he was married (in January 1689), and his wife, Evdokia Lopukhina, was pregnant; he had troops at his disposal, notably his own `play' regiments and foreign officers; and he had the support of the patriarch. In fact, Sophia's rule was doomed from the start, because it could be perpetuated indefinitely only by disposing of Peter. This she seems never seriously to have contemplated, despite ample opportunities. Even the crisis of August 1689, when Peter believed that the strel'tsy were coming to kill him and fled to the Trinity monastery, may have been engineered by Peter's own supporters in order to force a confrontation between Peter and Sophia which they knew she was unlikely to win, given dissatisfaction with the Crimean campaigns, and which Peter, too wrapped up in his own interests, could not be relied upon to precipitate. August-September saw a stand-off between Sophia and her fast-dwindling forces in the Kremlin and Peter's supporters, massed at the Trinity-St Sergius monastery. The brief clash ended in late September, when Vasily Golitsyn was exiled to the north of Russia, and Sophia was locked up in the Novodevichy convent, were she remained until her death in 1704.

    For the rest of his life Peter associated Sophia with the dark forces of opposition, even if he blamed most of the active wickedness on her male supporters. The perpetrators of the so-called Tsykler plot to kill Peter in 1696-7 were executed over the exhumed coffin of Ivan Miloslavsky, identified by several contemporaries as the master-mind behind the 1682 rebellion. `The seed of Ivan Miloslavsky is sprouting,' wrote Peter, when called back to Russia to deal with another strel'tsy revolt in 1698. He apparently recognized Sophia's `great intelligence', but thought it was overshadowed by `great malice and cunning'. Engraved portraits depicting her wearing a crown and carrying royal regalia were sought out and destroyed, but many copies survived, along with painted portraits set against the background of the double-headed eagle bearing the seven Virtues on its wings, eloquent testimony both to Sophia's political aspirations and to the new cultural trends which she encouraged. At least one of Peter's successors did not share his view. Catherine the Great wrote of Sophia: `Much has been said about this princess, but I believe that she has not been given the credit she deserves ... she conducted the affairs of the Empire for a number of years with all the sagacity one could hope for. When one considers the business that passed through her hands, one cannot but concede that she was capable of ruling.'

III. THE MAKING OF A SOVEREIGN: THE 1690s

There are good reasons for devoting some space to the period between the overthrow of Sophia and Golitsyn and the declaration of war against Sweden in August 1700. The fact that these years have generally been regarded as merely a `prelude' to reform has condemned the 1690s to neglect in general histories, which tend to confine themselves to such selected highlights as the Grand Embassy and the Azov campaigns. Yet this decade is vital for understanding both the man and his Russia, the moulding of Peter's priorities and the clarification of the options open to him, both at home and abroad. For a start, a closer examination of the early 1690s reveals the error of assuming an unbroken line of developing `Westernization' from the 1680s into the new century. The 1690s were not merely a bridge between the cautious modernization of the Sophia-Golitsyn regime and Peter's full-blooded post-1700 variant. Some new trends--in art and architecture, for example--continued and flourished, while others were suspended. The 1690s saw a continuing struggle, to use a cliche, between the `old' and the `new', personified in the figures of the two ruling monarchs: `pious' Ivan making stately progress in his heavy brocade robes and `impious' Peter clad in German dress dashing from shipyard to military parade.

    In a letter to Tsar Ivan, written between 8 and 12 September 1689, Peter wrote: `And now, brother sovereign, the time has come for us to rule the realm entrusted to us by God, since we are of age and we must not allow that third shameful personage, our sister the Tsarevna S.A., to share the titles and government with us two male persons.' In fact, Peter showed little inclination to `rule the realm'. His preoccupation with his own interests for the first few years, then his prolonged absences, first at Azov, then in the West, ceded the centre to others, to the extent that some of the first actions of the new regime appeared to turn back the clock, taking advantage of the removal of Vasily Golitsyn, the `friend of foreigners', to annul concessions made during Sophia's regency and to adopt closer supervision of foreigners in general, in order to stem the spread of heresy from across the borders. Patriarch Joachim was the prime mover. On 2 October 1689 the Jesuit fathers Georgius David and Tobias Tichavsky were expelled. Sanctions were imposed against Jesuits in particular, not Catholics in general, probably because there were some influential foreign Catholics close to Peter, and Russia was still allied to Catholic powers. A decree of 1690 allowed two priests to serve the foreign Catholic community, but the authorities were to take precautions to ensure that they did not try to convert Russians, visit them in their homes, carry on foreign correspondence or turn out to be Jesuits in disguise. In October 1689 the Protestant mystic Quirinus Kuhlman was burned on Red Square together with his works. P.I. Prozorovsky, governor of Novgorod, was warned to take care that `such criminals should not enter the country and that foreigners who in future arrive from abroad from various countries at the border and in Novgorod the Great and claim that they have come to enter service or to visit relatives or for some other business in Moscow, should be questioned at the border and in Novgorod and detained and not allowed to proceed to Moscow until you receive our royal instructions'. All foreign travellers were to be interrogated and asked to provide certificates and passes, and transcripts of such interrogations were to be made. Just before his death in 1690, Patriarch Joachim called a church council to consider the recantation of the monk Silvester Medvedev, who was accused, among other things, of propagating a Catholic view of transubstantiation. Copies of Medvedev's book Manna were seized and burnt, and its author was defrocked and beheaded in 1691. Another whiff of Old Russia comes from a report of the uncovering in 1689 of a sorcerers' conspiracy, master-minded by Andrei Bezobrazov, who allegedly attempted to undermine the health of Peter and his mother by casting spells `on bones, on money and on water'. The ring-leaders were beheaded or burnt, other `conspirators' flogged and banished. For a few months after Sophia's overthrow the atmosphere was so oppressive that Peter's friend, the Scottish mercenary General Patrick Gordon, contemplated leaving Russia.

    But in the midst of this resurgence of the old, the new was asserting itself with unprecedented vigour. Despite the Church's dire warnings about the dangers of contamination by heretics, Peter himself was spending more and more time in the company of foreigners. The Foreign Quarter was only a few miles from the Preobrazhenskoe palace, where Peter spent much of Sophia's regency. Peter became a frequent visitor at the homes of Lefort and Gordon, and soon got to know other foreign soldiers and merchants, attending banquets, weddings, and funerals. Lefort's palace, with a splendidly appointed ballroom added, was turned into a semi-official residence for the sort of reception which it was still difficult to hold in the Kremlin, accompanied by `debauchery and drunkenness so great that it is impossible to describe it'. At about this time Peter probably learned Dutch (from Andrei Vinius, a government official of Dutch descent), and also took lessons in dancing, fencing, and riding. In February 1690 the birth of Peter's first child, Alexis, was celebrated not only with the customary church services and bells but also with cannon-fire and drum-beats. Foreign-led infantry regiments were drawn up in the Kremlin, presented with gifts and vodka to mark the occasion, and ordered to fire off rounds of shot, `disturbing the peace of the saints and ancient tsars of Moscow'. Over the next few days there were firework displays, more gun salutes, banquets, and feasts. Conservatives took retaliatory action. On the patriarch's orders, a banquet on 28 February was held without the now customary foreign guests, who were banned; but the next day the tsar dined with Patrick Gordon. Then in March Joachim died. His `Testament', which denounced the policy of hiring foreigners and deplored toleration of other faiths, has been described as the `last gasp' of Old Russia:

May our sovereigns never allow any Orthodox Christians in their realm to entertain any close friendly relations with heretics and dissenters--with the Latins, Lutherans, Calvinists and godless Tatars (whom our Lord abominates and the church of God damns for their God-abhorred guile); but let them be avoided as enemies of God and defamers of the Church.

Joachim's successor was Adrian, consecrated on 24 August 1690. He was to be Russia's last patriarch, his office left vacant after his death in 1700, and abolished altogether in 1721.

    As long as Tsar Ivan was alive, the old guard still retained a figure-head in the Kremlin. After the overthrow of Sophia and Golitsyn, the old Muscovite court life, with its liturgical emphasis, was resumed with a vengeance, cleansed of the `unseemly' female variants introduced by Sophia. Festivals gave special prominence to the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, celebrating earlier hierarchs who had assumed a strong political role, such as Metropolitans Philip and Alexis, and paying homage to the ruling dynasty with requiems for departed royalty (such as Tsarevich Alexis Alekseevich, whose death had not been marked in previous years). Old palace protocols persisted, on paper at least; for example, the practice of listing in order of rank all the nobles `in attendance' ( za nimi Velikimi Gosudariami ) on the tsars at such occasions as summer outings ( pokhody ) to country residences and monasteries. The Church continued to make its contribution to the business of warfare and government: in April 1695 General Avtamon Golovin was issued with icons of the Saviour, the Mother of God, and St Sergius and ten pounds of incense to carry in the campaign to Azov. In September 1697 Prince M. Ia. Cherkassky, the new governor of Tobol'sk, received a set of instructions, the first of which was to go to the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom and hear prayers for the tsar and his family read by Metropolitan Ignaty of Siberia. A few months later Patriarch Adrian issued a long instruction to churches and monasteries on priorities and procedures.

    Despite the apparent vigour of tradition, the keepers of the palace records could not conceal the fact that one of the tsars was opting out of the usual rituals. Nowhere is the spirit of the new better illustrated than in an entry recorded shortly after Joachim's death. On 27 April 1690 (April was traditionally the start of the royal pilgrimage season) `the Great Sovereign Peter Alekseevich deigned to visit Kolomenskoe'. For his trip a rowing boat was got up to look like a sailing ship; the boyars followed in two boats and strel'tsy went in front in seven, and `as they sailed along the water there was firing from cannon and hand guns'. The `play' regiments, Peter's private troops, went along in smaller craft. Tsar Ivan travelled by land. Thus we see two tsars, one firmly rooted in old Russia, the other looking to new horizons. (Thirty-four years later, in 1724, Peter again travelled to Kolomenskoe along the river, in a small flotilla with Russian and foreign guests who had gathered in Moscow for the coronation of his second wife, Catherine. The interior of the old wooden palace, it seems, had been preserved exactly as it was in the tsar's youth.) In May 1690 we find Peter making a tour of monasteries, but more often than not Ivan carried out such duties alone. This turn of events was noted by contemporaries. Boris Kurakin records: `First the ceremonial processions to the cathedral were abandoned and Tsar Ivan Alekseevich started to go alone; also the royal robes were abandoned and Peter wore simple dress. Public audiences were mostly abandoned (such as were given to visiting prelates and envoys from the hetman, for which there were public processions,); now there were simple receptions.'

    Many of Peter's unofficial activities are recorded in the diary of Patrick Gordon, which provides a secular alternative to the old records which were so deeply rooted in the religious calendar. We learn that on 30 May 1690 Peter spent his birthday at Preobrazhenskoe enjoying gun salutes and target practice. On 19 January 1691 Peter visited P. V. Sheremetev, and the next day Gordon had such a dreadful hangover that he could not get out of bed until the evening. A dinner at Boris Golitysn's on 16 May had similar consequences. And so on. Royal account books for 1690-1 show numerous entries for orders for `German dress' in the royal workshops, made from materials bought from foreign merchants and intended for Peter and members of his play regiments. Peter's enthusiasm for things foreign is indicated by the motley collection of foreign goods shipped to Archangel in 1692: mathematical instruments, two globes, a large organ, four large clocks, five barrels of Rhine wine, and a barrel of olive oil.

    The new was taking its place alongside the old. After the traditional blessing of the waters at Preobrazhenskoe on 1 August, for example, there was firing from guns. Tsaritsa Natalia's name-day celebrations on 27 August 1691 combined the usual church services, visits from churchmen and receipt and dispensing of gifts on the tsaritsa's behalf, with a reception of visitors by the tsaritsa herself (from which, however, foreigners were excluded), followed by gun salutes and fireworks. We must also look to the beginning of the 1690s for the origins of one of Peter's most controversial `institutions', the All-Drunken, All-Jesting Assembly or `Synod'. Sometimes dismissed as an adolescent aberration, in fact the Drunken Assembly flourished throughout Peter's reign. The new trends seemed to be growing inexorably, yet how easily it might all have changed. In November 1692 Peter fell ill, and for ten days was at death's door. There were rumours that many of his supporters were preparing to flee. His recovery signalled the resumption of the new life with a vengeance. In July 1693 Peter set off for Archangel to see the sea. This was an `outing' ( pokhod ) for which the record-keepers lacked the vocabulary. The clerks compromised by listing the courtiers in attendance on Peter in the usual manner, but without reference to their destination. Yet this historic journey had much in common with the royal outings of old. The accompanying retinue was listed according to rank, from boyars to secretaries. Peter travelled with a priest, eight choristers, two dwarfs and forty strel'tsy. During Peter's travels Tsar Ivan's activities were solemnly chronicled, and Peter's absences were sometimes noted--for example, at the requiem mass for the late Tsarevna Anna Mikhailovna on 24 July. Moscow was depleted of courtiers. More than ever, the life-style of the two courts diverged. For example, the Russian New Year on 1 September 1693 was celebrated in Archangel with gun salutes from both foreign and Russian ships in the harbour, while back in Moscow, Tsar Ivan, clad in robes of red velvet, `deigned to go from his royal chambers to the cathedral' to hear the patriarch celebrate the liturgy `according to the usual rites'. On occasion, Peter assumed a traditional role, visiting his father's favourite place of pilgrimage, the St Sabbas monastery at Zvenigorod, in May 1693; but after Tsar Ivan's death in January 1696, more and more rituals were enacted without any tsar at all. An old formula was adopted to cover for Peter's absence, be it on campaign or abroad, i.e., the appointment of a small group of deputies to attend services and ceremonials in his stead. An order to this effect was issued: from 2 April to 1 September 1697 `the tsarevichy, boyars, okol'nichie and gentlemen of the duma shall follow behind the holy icons in parades and services', although entries in the palace records reveal that the escort usually comprised only token representatives of these ranks. So, for example, the 1697 Epiphany ceremony was attended by Tsarevich Vasily of Siberia, boyar Prince P. I. Khovansky, okol'nichii S. F. Tolochanov, and Secretary Avatamon Ivanov.

    If the early 1690s were a time of exploration and game playing, they also saw the beginnings of serious activity. Peter's first chance to try out his strength came in 1694 when his mother died. The demise of Natalia Naryshkina, a useful figure-head for the leading men, whose power rested upon their relationship to the royal mother, threatened a new configuration of forces which could have worked to Peter's disadvantage. But any thoughts of, for example, using the strel'tsy again against Peter were discouraged by Peter's own forces, based upon the `play' ( poteshnye ) troops. The two regiments took their names from the adjacent royal villages at Preobrazhenskoe and Semenovskoe to the north of Moscow. Their organization--foreign ranks, training, uniforms--was modelled on the new-formation infantry regiments introduced in the 1630s. The story goes that in the 1680s Peter discovered about 300 men idle at a former royal hunting-lodge, and signed them up to play military games. Others were requisitioned from regular units: for example, a drummer and fifteen troopers from the Butyrsky infantry regiment in 1687. Young nobles who might once have served as gentlemen of the bedchamber and in other junior court posts were recruited alongside local lads from a variety of backgrounds. The Semenovsky regiment was formed from the overflow from the Preobrazhensky regiment. Officers and men were all said to be known to the tsar personally. By 1685 the embryonic guards had a scaled-down wooden fortress which Peter named Presburg, with barracks and stables adjacent to the Preobrazhenskoe palace. In deference to foreign expertise, Russians, including the tsar himself, served in the ranks or as non-commissioned officers. A list of officers ( nachal'nye liudi ) of both regiments for 1695 shows that they were all foreigners, although Russian names appear in the next year or so, mostly in the lower officer ranks.

    In September 1694 Peter staged the so-called Kozhukhovo manoeuvres, mock exercises which were `partly political in nature', in which some 30,000 men participated. The `campaign' presented Muscovites with a show of strength, as armies commanded by Fedor Romodanovsky, the `king of Presburg', and Ivan Buturlin, the `king of Poland', paraded through the city. The mock battle included an assault with explosives on a specially constructed fortress, which left twenty-four dead and fifteen wounded. Members of both the Lopukhin and the Naryshkin families were placed on the losing side, perhaps to make the point that Peter did not intend to be beholden to any of his relatives unless they proved their worth.

    Soon there were to be opportunities for real service. In the wake of the disastrous Crimean campaigns of 1687 and 1689, which attracted little allied support, Russia began to lose confidence in the Holy League, fearing exclusion from any future peace negotiations with the Turks. Even so, Peter was determined to continue the war in the hope of real gain and in 1695 he reopened hostilities in a campaign against the Turkish coastal fort of Azov at the mouth of the River Don, in an attempt to recover Russian prestige, gain a stronger bargaining position with his allies and ward off Turkish attacks on Ukraine. It was widely believed in 1694-5 that Peter was planning to make another assault on the Crimea, `march with a mighty army against the Crim Tartar, having an Artillery of 80 great guns and 150 Mortars', to bring relief to hard-pressed Poland, rumours which Peter was happy to encourage. In the event, he marched not to Perekop, but to Azov, a plan which may have been suggested by Patrick Gordon. Two armies were dispatched: the joint force of B. P. Sheremetev and the Ukrainian hetman Ivan Mazepa to the Dnieper, to deflect the Tatars from the mouth of the Don, and a smaller unit consisting of the Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky guards and strel'tsy on river craft down the Don.

    Peter wrote to Fedor Apraksin: `In the autumn we were engaged in martial games at Kozhukhovo. They weren't intended to be anything more than games. But that play was the herald of real activity.' In this, as in some subsequent campaigns, Peter ceded nominal command to others. The commander-in-chief was A. S. Shein, while the tsar marched as a bombardier in the Preobrazhensky regiment. The first Azov campaign was a failure, and the fortress remained in Turkish hands. Peter blamed this on multiple command, tactical errors, and technical deficiencies. Foreign engineering specialists were hired for the next campaign, in an effort to avoid such fiascos as mines planted on ramparts far away from the enemy blowing up 130 Russians without doing any damage to the Turks. The Turks, meanwhile, were able to replenish supplies from the sea, with no Russian ships to hinder them.

    This set-back has often been identified as the real beginning of Peter's career, when he was forced to `grow up' and discover `astonishing reserves of energy'. Such formulae should not simply be dismissed as part of a Petrine myth propagated by both tsarist and Soviet writers. Failure did indeed stimulate the implementation of a number of measures, characterized by what was to become the typically `Petrine' use of speed, mass recruitment, and command from above. The prime example was the preparation of galleys at Voronezh on the Don for a renewed campaign in 1696, a huge effort in which thousands of the tsar's subjects were expected to do their bit, from the leading churchmen and merchants, who reluctantly supplied the cash, to the hapless labourers drafted in to hack wood in terrible conditions. Both river craft and seagoing vessels were to support an army of some 46,000 Russian troops, 15,000 Ukrainian Cossacks, 5,000 Don Cossacks, and 3,000 Kalmyks. At the end of May 1696, Peter's land and sea forces laid siege to Azov. By 7 June a Russian flotilla was able to take to the sea and cut off access to Turkish reinforcements.82 Apart from the use of sea power, Russian success was aided by General Gordon's plan of a rolling rampart ('the throwing up a wall of earth and driveing it on the Towne wall') and the services of Austrian engineers. On 18 July the fortress surrendered.

    This victory prompted some striking manifestations of the new culture. In the past, military triumphs had been largely religious affairs, celebrated by parades of crosses and icons headed by chanting priests. Such displays of thanksgiving continued right to the end of Peter's reign--in Russia, as in every other European country, military victory and defeat were interpreted as inextricably linked with God's will--but from now on the religious processions were supplemented, and usually eclipsed, by secular parades bristling with `pagan' symbols. After Azov, triumphal gates of Classical design bearing the legend in Russian `I came. I saw. I conquered' gave a preview of the imperial Roman references and imagery which culminated in the festivities of 1721, when Russia became an empire. There were references to Christian Rome, too, and comparisons of Peter to the Emperor Constantine. In addition to the customary prayers, verses were chanted through a megaphone by State Secretary Andrei Vinius. Peter, wearing German uniform, marched in the parade behind the official heroes Admiral Lefort and General Shein, while the religious authority was parodied by `prince-pope' Nikita Zotov in a carriage. It is said that Peter had in mind not only Roman precedents but also the example of Ivan IV, who organized a similar parade after the conquest of Kazan in 1552. This was the first public display of the new manners, which until then had by and large been confined to semi-private indulgence at Preobrazhenskoe or in the Foreign Quarter. This new openness fanned growing popular disapproval of Peter's foreign ways, which expressed itself in full force in 1698, when the strel'tsy revolted.

    The 1690s saw interesting developments in art and culture. The semi-Westernized Moscow baroque style of the 1680s matured and spread beyond the capital, where masonry churches and civic buildings displayed decorative features such as Classical columns and carved stone and brick ornament inspired by Western Renaissance and baroque originals. Peter's maternal relatives commissioned so many churches in this style that it is often referred to as `Naryshkin baroque'. One of the finest examples, the Church of the Intercession at Fili, built for Lev Naryshkin in 1690-3, had icons which reflected family history--images of SS Peter and Paul, John the Baptist, Alexis Man of God, and St Stephen, the latter bearing a striking resemblance to the young Peter, who often visited the church. An even more remarkable church, commissioned by Prince Boris Golitsyn on his estate at Dubrovitsy in 1690, dispensed with the traditional cupolas (the tower is capped by an open-work crown) and had statues of saints over the parapets and Latin inscriptions inside.

    The painting of the 1690s also exhibits interesting `transitional' features. In January 1692 the Armoury received an order for eleven large pictures for Peter's residence at Pereiaslavl'-Zalessky (where he was experimenting with sailing), the subjects of which were the Saviour, the Mother of God, the martyr Natalia, Alexis Man of God, Alexander Nevsky, Peter and the martyr Evdokia. The family references (Alexander Nevsky, for example, was the patron saint of Peter's second son Alexander, born in October 1691) were almost certainly chosen by Peter's mother rather than Peter himself. But the commission reflected `modern' trends in so far as these were not traditional icon panels but paintings on canvas in frames. There are even more revealing indications of Peter's emerging individual taste: for example, his order in July 1691 for twelve German portraits ( person nemetskikh ) in gilt frames, to be taken to his apartments from the confiscated property of Prince Vasily Golitsyn. In August 1694 a team of painters in the Armoury received orders for twenty-three battle paintings for Peter's apartments, `after the German model', with frames also of German design. Four painters were to take four subjects each, and the rest were to be done by apprentices, `painting different subjects, making use of German pictures [as models]'. In June 1697, when Peter was abroad, the same team of Armoury painters was instructed to paint eight pictures on canvas depicting `troops going by sea, making use of foreign German pictures or engravings, employing the best workmanship'. Again, these were large canvases, evidently executed in some haste, given that the same painters were all dispatched to work in Voronezh in July, and the frames were ordered in August. Painters were called upon to do other jobs to meet new demands: for example, to decorate the new ships built at Voronezh in 1696-7. These few examples indicate clearly the emergence of a distinct secular culture from within the walls of the Moscow Armoury, that early `academy of arts' which housed a secular painting studio separate from the icon-painting workshops only since the 1680s.

    It is very difficult to assess the art of the 1690s because, like the 1696 triumphal gates, so few examples have survived. Accurate likenesses of Peter pre-dating the Grand Embassy are notable by their absence. Earlier engravings, such as Larmessen's double portrait of Peter and Ivan (ca. 1687), are mostly imaginative reconstructions. Evidently others existed but have disappeared; thus, in July 1695 an order was given for a printed `persona' of Peter to be stuck on to canvas and framed. Perhaps Peter's restless activity in the 1690s precluded sitting for portraits. Yet it is with portraits that we shall conclude our examination of the 1690s. The first is the most famous (once thought to be the only) image of the young tsar, painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller in London in 1698, now hanging in Kensington Palace in London. The startling contrast between this wholly Western depiction of a monarch and the few surviving images of Peter's father has often been pointed out, but is worth drawing attention to here: the bearded Orthodox tsar of the 1660s with traditional robes and pectoral and crown crosses gives way to the warrior in armour with a warship in the background. For Kneller, Peter was just another European monarch. All traces of Russian `exoticism' were expunged. Indeed, Kneller used the same set formula--column and crown to the left, warship in the background to the right, royal ermine, and armour--as in his 1680s portrait of James II. Yet there are other portraits of Peter from this period which remind us that the break with Old Russia was far from complete. One by the Dutch artist Pieter Van der Werff shows Peter dressed in the Polish style, while in an anonymous portrait now in the Rijksmuseum he wears Russian dress. A similar contrast may be observed in two much smaller images, produced a year later in an entirely different medium. In 1699 two experimental half-roubles were minted. The first, by Vasily Andreev of the Armoury, shows Peter full face, in icon style, wearing the Crown of Monomach. The second is wholly Western, showing the tsar as a Roman emperor in profile, with laurel wreath and mantle. On the reverse is a collar of St Andrew and a coat of arms. On the eve of the new century and the outbreak of the Northern War, the designers had, albeit unconsciously, expressed the contrast between old and new. Which of the two would prevail? In Peter's mind, at least, the contest was already decided, as were the means for augmenting national prestige and prosperity. The focus would shift from the Black Sea to the Baltic and the country which barred Russia's way, Sweden.

(C) 1998 Lindsey Hughes All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-300-07539-1