Adrian Fowles of the Countryside Council for Wales and members of the UK Environment Agency in 1993 coined ‘exposed riverine sediments’ as a term to describe the full scope of these related microhabitats.
Their aim in-so-doing was to reduce confusion and pull together the conservation and scientific investigation of these habitats.
Bates and Sadler (2005)[1] have since further defined exposed riverine sediments as: Exposed, within channel, fluvially deposited sediments (gravels, sands and silts) that lack continuous vegetation cover, whose vertical distribution lies between the levels of bankfull and the typical baseflow of the river.
ERS are of substantial importance for a small number of vertebrate species, such as the rare little ringed plover, but for the most part their value lies in their invertebrate fauna.
ERS rely on a continued supply of sediment from upstream, and periodic disturbances from flooding to prevent ecological succession to more vegetated riparian habitat.