Stream and Watershed Restoration: Planning, Prioritizing, and Monitoring

Moderators: Phil Roni*, Barry Baldigo, Tim Beechie, Ashley Steel, and Keith Nislow
Email: phil.roni@noaa.gov

Date: Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Time: 8:00 am to 5:40 pm
Location: Egan 3

The number of stream-restoration projects across North America has increased during the past two decades. Most of these efforts, however, fail to characterize overall watershed condition, prioritize reach, projects, and restoration objectives, or quantify the effectiveness of completed projects. Efforts to manage small streams and large rivers have historically ignored watershed processes and relied on engineering approaches such as hardening of channels and banks which increase stream stability and attempt to mitigate localized bed- and bank-erosion, water-quality, and flooding issues. Unfortunately, some of these activities have lead to additional degradation of aquatic habitats. More recent stream-restoration programs rely on natural stream processes, channel geomorphology, physical habitat, and biological processes in order not only to reassemble stable bank and channel geometry, but to restore stream processes and recreate functional aquatic ecosystems. Whether aiming to restore natural-channel conditions or promote hardening (stabilization), most efforts plan and implement stream-restoration projects within limited (small) reaches and with little knowledge of the surrounding watershed or the root causes of habitat degradation. These efforts usually ignore the effects that restoration has on resident biological communities, stream processes, and associated effects within contiguous reaches. Documentation of project successes (or failures) is typically minimal at best. The main objective of this symposium is to present the most current science concerning restoration of small streams and large rivers. Oral presentations will address methods to (1) assess degraded habitat and restoration objectives, (2) plan and prioritize restoration projects, and (3) evaluate stream restoration success at the reach, watershed, and regional scales. Related poster presentations should summarize findings from an assortment of individual case studies. The information provided in these presentations will be immediately useful to fish- and water-resource manages, researchers, restoration engineers, and individual stakeholders interested in protecting and improving conditions within natural streams and rivers. Thus, this symposium will be of interest to a broad audience.

Link to list of presentations in this symposium