Science Base and Tools for Evaluating Stream Restoration Project Proposals.
Abstract
Stream restoration, stabilization, or enhancement projects typically employ site-specific designs and site- scale habitat improvement projects have become the default solution to many habitat problems and constraints. Such projects are often planned and implemented without thorough consideration of the broader scale problems that may be contributing to habitat degradation, attention to project resiliency to flood events, accounting for possible changes in climate or watershed land use, or ensuring the long term sustainability of the project. To address these issues, NOAA Fisheries and USFWS have collaboratively commissioned research to develop a science document and accompanying tools to support more consistent and comprehensive review of stream management and restoration projects proposals by Service staff responsible for permitting. The science document synthesizes the body of knowledge in fluvial geomorphology and presents it in a way that is accessible to the Services staff biologists, who are not trained experts in this field. Accompanying the science document are two electronic tools: a Project Information Checklist to assist in evaluating whether a proposal includes all the information necessary to allow critical and thorough project evaluation; and a Project Evaluation Tool (in flow chart format) that guides reviewers through the steps necessary to critically evaluate the quality of the information submitted, the goals and objectives of the project, project planning and development, project design, geomorphic-habitat-species relevance, and risks to listed species. Materials for training Services staff and others in the efficient use of the science document and tools have also been developed. The longer term goals of this effort include: enabling consistent and comprehensive reviews that are completed in a timely fashion by regulators; facilitating improved project planning and design by proponents; encouraging projects that are attuned to their watershed and geomorphic contexts; questioning perceived constraints on project design; reducing the use of hard structures and encouraging deformability; promoting designs that address both risk and uncertainty in applying engineering design standards; allowing for future climate and land use changes; and encouraging post-project monitoring, appraisal and project aftercare.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008AGUFM.H42A..01C
- Keywords:
-
- 1803 Anthropogenic effects (4802;
- 4902);
- 1825 Geomorphology: fluvial (1625);
- 1856 River channels (0483;
- 0744)