Summary 1. Increasingly, river managers are turning from hard engineering solutions to ecologically based restoration activities in order to improve degraded waterways. River restoration projects aim to maintain or increase ecosystem goods and services while protecting downstream and coastal ecosystems. There is growing interest in applying river restoration techniques to solve environmental problems, yet little agreement exists on what constitutes a successful river restoration effort. 2. We propose five criteria for measuring success, with emphasis on an ecological perspective. First, the design of an ecological river restoration project should be based on a specified guiding image of a more dynamic, healthy river that could exist at the site. Secondly, the river’s ecological condition must be measurably improved. Thirdly, the river system must be more self-sustaining and resilient to external perturbations so that only minimal follow-up maintenance is needed. Fourthly, during the construction phase, no lasting harm should be inflicted on the ecosystem. Fifthly, both pre- and postassessment must be completed and data made publicly available. 3. Determining if these five criteria have been met for a particular project requires development of an assessment protocol. We suggest standards of evaluation for each of the five criteria and provide examples of suitable indicators. 4. Synthesis and applications . Billions of dollars are currently spent restoring streams and rivers, yet to date there are no agreed upon standards for what constitutes ecologically beneficial stream and river restoration. We propose five criteria that must be met for a river restoration project to be considered ecologically successful. It is critical that the broad restoration community, including funding agencies, practitioners and citizen restoration groups, adopt criteria for defining and assessing ecological success in restoration. Standards are needed because progress in the science and practice of river restoration has been hampered by the lack of agreed upon criteria for judging ecological success. Without well-accepted criteria that are ultimately supported by funding and implementing agencies, there is little incentive for practitioners to assess and report restoration outcomes. Improving methods and weighing the ecological benefits of various restoration approaches require organized national-level reporting systems.

/pdf/standards-for-ecologically-successful-river-restoration-m6t9p6x5um.pdf

Standards for ecologically successful river restoration

It is clear that the above can lead to confusion when scientists of different countries are trying to communicate with each other. Another example is the burrowing rodent called a gopher found throughout the western United States. In the southeastern United States the term gopher refers to a burrowing turtle very similar to the desert tortoise found in the American southwest. One final example; two North American mammals known as the elk and the caribou are known in Europe as the reindeer and the elk. We never sing “Rudolph the Red-nosed elk”! Confused? This was the reason for creating an internationally recognized system of naming organisms. To avoid confusion, living organisms are assigned a scientific name based on Latin or Latinized words. The English sparrow is Passer domesticus or Passer domesticus (italics or underlining these two names is the official written representation of a scientific name). Using a uniform naming system allows scientists from all over the world to recognize exactly which life form a scientist is referring to. The naming process is called the binomial system of nomenclature. Passer is comparable to a surname and is called the genus, while domesticus is the specific or species name (like your given name) of the English sparrow. Now scientists can give all sparrow-like birds the genus Passer but the species name will vary. All similar genera (plural for genus) can be grouped into another, “higher” category (see below). Study the following for a more through understanding of taxonomy. Taxonomy Analogy Kingdom: Animalia Country

Diversity of life

River restoration is one of the most prominent areas of applied water-resources science. From an initial focus on enhancing fish habitat or river appearance, primarily through structural modification of channel form, restoration has expanded to incorporate a wide variety of management activities designed to enhance river process and form. Restoration is conducted on headwater streams, large lowland rivers, and entire river networks in urban, agricultural, and less intensively human-altered environments. We critically examine how contemporary practitioners approach river restoration and challenges for implementing restoration, which include clearly identified objectives, holistic understanding of rivers as ecosystems, and the role of restoration as a social process. We also examine challenges for scientific understanding in river restoration. These include: how physical complexity supports biogeochemical function, stream metabolism, and stream ecosystem productivity; characterizing response curves of different river components; understanding sediment dynamics; and increasing appreciation of the importance of incorporating climate change considerations and resiliency into restoration planning. Finally, we examine changes in river restoration within the past decade, such as increasing use of stream mitigation banking; development of new tools and technologies; different types of process-based restoration; growing recognition of the importance of biological-physical feedbacks in rivers; increasing expectations of water quality improvements from restoration; and more effective communication between practitioners and river scientists.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/2014WR016874

The science and practice of river restoration

https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_exp_for/tenderfoot/exp_for_tenderfoot_2010_varhola.pdf

Forest canopy effects on snow accumulation and ablation: an integrative review of empirical results.

A holy grail of hydrology is to understand catchment processes well enough that models can provide detailed simulations across a variety of hydrologic settings at multiple spatiotemporal scales, and under changing environmental conditions. Clearly, this cannot be achieved only through intensive place-based investigation at a small number of heavily instrumented catchments, or by empirical methods that do not fully exploit our understanding of hydrology. In this opinion paper, we discuss the need to actively promote and pursue the use of a "large catchment sample" approach to modeling the rainfall–runoff process, thereby balancing depth with breadth. We examine the history of such investigations, discuss the benefits (improved process understanding resulting in robustness of prediction at ungauged locations and under change), examine some practical challenges to implementation and, finally, provide perspectives on issues that need to be taken into account as we move forward. Ultimately, our objective is to provoke further discussion and participation, and to promote a potentially important theme for the upcoming Scientific Decade of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences entitled Panta Rhei.

/pdf/large-sample-hydrology-a-need-to-balance-depth-with-breadth-53vovw4s42.pdf

Large-sample hydrology: a need to balance depth with breadth

As demand for fresh water increases in tandem with human population growth and a changing climate, the need to understand the ecological tradeoffs of flow regulation gains greater importance. Environmental classification is a first step towards quantifying these tradeoffs by creating the framework necessary for analysing the effects of flow variability on riverine biota. Our study presents a spatially explicit hydrogeomorphic classification of streams and rivers in Washington State, USA and investigates how projected climate change is likely to affect flow regimes in the future. We calculated 99 hydrologic metrics from 15 years of continuous daily discharge data for 64 gauges with negligible upstream impact, which were entered into a Bayesian mixture model to classify flow regimes into seven major classes described by their dominant flow source as follows: groundwater (GW), rainfall (RF), rain-with-snow (RS), snow-and-rain (SandR), snow-with-rain (SR), snowmelt (SM) and ultra-snowmelt (US). The largest class sizes were represented by the transitional RS and SandR classes (14 and 12 gauges, respectively), which are ubiquitous in temperate, mountainous landscapes found in Washington. We used a recursive partitioning algorithm and random forests to predict flow class based on a suite of environmental and climate variables. Overall classification success was 75%, and the model was used to predict normative flow classes at the reach scale for the entire state. Application of future climate change scenarios to the model inputs indicated shifts of varying magnitude from snow-dominated to rain-dominated flow classes. Lastly, a geomorphic classification was developed using a digital elevation model (DEM) and climatic data to assign stream segments as either dominantly able or unable to migrate, which was cross-tabulated with the flow types to produce a 14-tier hydrogeomorphic classification. The hydrogeomorphic classification provides a framework upon which empirical flow alteration–ecological response relationships can subsequently be developed using ecological information collected throughout the region. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

http://peterskidmore.com/Consulting_Site/Publications_files/ReidyLiermannEtAl_RRA_2011.pdf

Hydrogeomorphic classification of washington state rivers to support emerging environmental flow management strategies

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/4020/noaa_4020_DS1.pdf

Science base and tools for evaluating stream engineering, management, and restoration proposals

Approaches to natural channel design have been categorized herein as analog, empirical, or analytical. Analog design replicates historic or adjacent channel characteristics and assumes equilibrium sediment and hydrologic conditions. Empirical design uses equations that relate various channel characteristics derived from regionalized or “universal” data sets, and also assumes equilibrium sediment and hydrologic conditions. Analytical design makes use of the continuity equation, roughness equations, hydraulic models, and a variety of sediment transport functions to derive equilibrium channel conditions, and thus is applicable to situations where historic or current channel conditions are not in equilibrium, or where applicable analogs or empirical equations are unavailable. Analog, empirical and analytical approaches each have advantages and limitations. The advantage of the analog and empirical approaches is the intuitive simplicity of replicating desired channel and habitat characteristics from stable systems. Analog and empirical approaches require little or no evaluation of sediment transport, as their application assumes equilibrium conditions. Analytical approaches are required when no analog sites or empirical equations are applicable as a consequence of altered or changing hydrologic character and sediment inputs. Analytical approaches offer advantages when site constraints impose limitations on channel form, but may require considerably greater quantitative analysis to achieve final designs.

https://fs.ogm.utah.gov/PUB/MINES/AMR_Related/NAAMLP/StrmRest/Skidmore.pdf

A Categorization of Approaches to Natural Channel Design

The Nature Conservancy, the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

/pdf/willamette-valley-pugettrough-georgia-basin-ecoregional-44atpaa1u1.pdf

Willamette Valley-PugetTrough-Georgia Basin ecoregional assessment

Clearcut, burned, and undisturbed lodgepole pine forests in southwestern Montana were studied to determine if forest fire increased snow accumulation and ablation rates on the forest floor. Snow depth, snow density, and snow water equivalence data were collected at each plot throughout the ablation period during the 1992 snow season and the accumulation and ablation periods during the 1993 snow season. Forest variables including percent canopy cover, basal area and tree heights were measured during the 1992 summer season to assess the effects of forest cover on snow variables. Results suggest that burned forest canopy reduction results in a 9 percent increase in snow water equivalence accumulations as compared to mature forest stands; forest canopy reduction in burned forest stands produces ablation rates which are as much as 57 percent greater than in mature forest stands; and forest fire produces a forest structure which approximates the effects of clearcut openings on snow accumulation and ablation. SNOW ACCUMULATION AND ABLATION UNDER, FIRE-ALTERED LODGEPOLE PINE FOREST CANOPIES by Peter Brooks Skidmore A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for.the degree of Master of Science in Earth Sciences MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY Bozeman, Montana May 1994

Snow accumulation and ablation under fire-altered lodgepole pine forest canopies

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