Wilderness areas along river and stream banks act as sponges that absorb water and reduce the likelihood of flooding, they also slow down the flow rate of the water when it’s in spate, this also reduces the flood risk and helps reduce damage when flooding does occur.
Uncultivated field boundaries and screening of commercial forestry with native species are two more examples of returning strips of land to a more natural state. There are the aesthetic benefits but also the benefits to species that thrive there.
Farmers are now setting land aside and allowing it to return to wild meadows, this encourages bees which in turn are the farmers best source of pollination. In some cases this has meant cultivating less land, and therefore less costs and resources, whilst increasing overall yields.
It some places it used to be common policy to build on floodplains and protect developments with embankments and levees. The folly of this is now being realised as more and more such developments succumb to flooding. Hopefully the developers and planners have learned from their mistakes.
Here in the UK there are river embankments that are being removed to allow the rivers and estuaries to return to a pattern of natural flooding. This means that when river levels are high the excess water escapes into nature reserves and controlled areas instead of flooding populated riverside areas.
In some places a policy of warping is being reintroduced, this is the deliberate flooding of agricultural land by the seas and rivers. When the floodwaters recede they leave behind a rich layer of silt that provides excellent agricultural land with reduced need for fertilisers.
Whilst there are clearly advantages to such schemes, the impact on global warming will be exceptionally small, so too will the number of people employed to implement and maintain such schemes.
Where there are rivers now, we typically have wilderness until humans encroach. After humans encroach, the cost of removing them and their "improvements" becomes very costly. Most places restrict building too close to the river due to flooding. I would say the answer is no. Global warming shouldn't be a reason to add wilderness or retain wilderness next to rivers. First AGW has be shown to be significant and harmful threat. After that, discussions can begin about what to do about it.
Regional regulations ought be cited and enforced by the people that go to these banks and fish holes as a whole. The Interior knows that local respect predominates over political conditioning orders when people need to allow nature its nights off from us. To make some rank and file generalizational edict bout fields and streams may as well sell them to the highest bidder and shotgun what damn well pleases who 'owns it'. Sharing a natural experience requires the unsupervised scutiny of those who have frequented these places over the last 6 million years, and particularly , the last few decades. If people aren't present, then nature shall deem its rights of arrested development and inconsequential distortive predisposal of where they have been and to where are they how nice.
I don't think we should have the strip of wilderness alongside river banks - unless we can cross it to do our washing in the river.
Similarly with springs, we need to be able to walk to the spring with our containers to collect a day's worth of water for home use.
Even if this were possible, it would hardly make a dent in either employment or global warming. There are many other good reasons for leaving still undeveloped flood plains undeveloped, at least in many instances, but that is a different issue (for a different category of YA).
This is already regulated in many places. The reason is to filter agriculture run-off to keep it from running into drinking water supplies. I don't see how it adds to employment as it is a cost to farmers and growers. The only benefit is that it keeps poisons out of our water, which is a big benefit.
Have U noticed? The above diverse opinions make Monarchy even more important.
