River Restoration in the United States: a Perspective from the Upper Midwest

Ecological restoration of streams and rivers is a common management practice in the Upper Midwest, USA. As with other regions, little information exists regarding types of activities and their effectiveness. We developed a database of 1,345 stream restoration projects for the states of Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin in order to analyze regional trends in river restoration. Information was collected from federal, state, and county agencies, as well as non-profit and consulting groups. In addition, 39 phone interviews were conducted on a stratified random sample from this database to determine whether projects were ecologically successful. The most common restoration goals reported for this region were in-stream habitat improvement, bank stabilization, water quality management and dam removal. The median project cost was 6,000, and estimated expenditures for stream restoration in this region during 2002 was 21.4 million. Only 11% of data records indicated that some sort of monitoring was performed, whereas interviews revealed some type of project monitoring occurred 80% of the time. Although project managers reported success in all but one case (97% of the 39 interviews), the reasons given seldom were based on ecological criteria. These results highlight the need for more detailed and standardized reporting of restoration project outcomes.