Rivers have always shaped the development of human society, their flows of water and sediment influencing food production, transportation, industrial activity, and power generation. Extreme flows that cause flood and drought, erosion, and sedimentation have brought widespread damage and untold misery. Since ancient times, people have known that river flows transport sediment, but not until the start of the twentieth century did engineers and scientists begin to understand the complex interaction of flowing water and sediment.

In this biography, Robert Ettema and Cornelia Mutel...