• Linking
  hydromorphology
  to ecology
• Network Contacts
• Resources
• Physical Habitat Assessment Methods in Rivers
• 2009 AGU Session
• 2008 AGU Session
• Ballater Workshop
• Relevant Literature
• Ongoing progress
• Contact
• South Korean 4-rivers project
• Catchment Management Homepage

Break-out session 3. Restoring ecology through hydromorphology (covering topic 6)

Group A

Group B

Group C

Final wrap up thoughts

Group A:

What is the most efficient cost-benefit approach for best ecological and hydromorphological outcomes?

• Perceived vs actual ecological benefit
• Site specific
• Role of science?
  • All experiments
  • Transferability
  • Assessment
• Clearer objectives – success - monitoring
  • Hydromorophology
  • Ecology
  • Socio-economic
• Predictive models
• Hierarchy approaches
  • Incentive
  • Regulation
• Holistic Approaches possible
  • Land ownership is limiting
• How to prioritize?
  • GIS-DEM, LiDAR, network model
  • Where should habitats be?
  • Are they there?
• Who does restoration?
  • Scotland – fish biologists
  • England – Natural England, River Trust
  • States –
    • many fish (allegedly!)
    • East coast, WQ, low sediment issues
    • Often fish biologists in regulation
  • Sweden
    • Restoration, acidification, restocking, liming, small scale habitat improvements
• What are benefits to wider biodiversity of fish restoration?
• Multiple-use
  • Flood control
  •  Ecology
• Series of small projects artificially grouped into larger projects; pretend integration
• Western US
  • Declining fish
  • Political expediency
  • Doesn’t deal with main problem, no water
• RBMP
  • Prioritization
  • But monitoring?
  • Lack of tools for national strategy
• East Coast US
  • Mussels (gulf of mexico)
  • Role of subsidy of land use
  • Benefits not near those paying costs
• Japan
  • Downstream pays upstream
• Learning from failure
  • Calfed
    • pretends multi-function, but actually fish focused
    • No feedback on performance, planning
    • Governance
    • No monitoring – none, too short (20-30 years)
    • Justify spending
• Need for adaptive strategy?
• Need for adaptive strategy
• Lack system approach, prioritization and limiting factors
• No one giving up resource, unrealistic
  • Win-win is a myth
• Fear of failure – needs to be reported to learn
• Mitigation vs restoration.

Group B:

How much restoration do we need to create a healthy ecosystem?

Redefine a “healthy” ecosystem as “functioning in a regionally relevant context”. Attributes of healthy ecosystem are

• Resilient
• Self-sustaining
• Stable but dynamic (not static)
• Diverse physically and biologically
• Connected

Approaches to estimating how much is enough?

• For species, identify bottlenecks and critical habitats
• Quantify functional groups or trait groups
• Focal species approaches
• Identify processes that must be restored to achieve goals

Enough is: spatial, temporal, and functional

• Limiting factors addressed
• Habitat available and accessible at important times
• At least some of each environments is functioning and connected
• Enough restoration of the right types that the outcome is greater than the sum of the parts

How do we know when we get there?

• Need measurable objectives

Group C:

How can we achieve effective monitoring and evaluation of ecologically-based river restoration efforts?

1. Why on earth…?
2. Timescale for restoration/monitoring/event capturing
   1. Ecologically and morphologically relevant
3. Science documents, existing knowledge
4. Quantification dej/ challenges
5. Feedback during process
6. Value of monitoring: compliance vs objective/target oriented
   1. Learning process
7. Consider concepts of ecosystems (not just target species)
8. Lack of baseline data; reasonable, meaningful data
9. Budget
10. External controls considering
11. Post monitoring framework needed
12. Future changes
13. Maintenance
    1. 3 elements of monitoring/evaluation
       1. implemented (….)?
       2. reasonable, clear objectives?
       3. Long-term success?

Workshop was successful in getting agreement on overall objective for monitoring/evaluation

• Process – considered in monitoring and assessment
• Ensembles f evaluation parameters
• Don’t be shy of quantitative measures

Facit:

• We basically know what to do but…
  • Showstoppers include landowners, implementation, conflicts of interest
  • Need to package the knowledge so that implementation is possible

Final wrap up thoughts

Final thoughts from the group

• Monitoring bank
• Capture experiences
• Project evaluation
• Responsibilities/funding
• Monitoring can be made compulsory
  • Precedent from EIA
• Integrated research requirements
  • Role of existing organizations and restoration centers
• Utility of failures
• Small uncoordinated projects
• Meta analysis

Next steps from the group

• Feedback to UKTAG Rivers – R. Owen
• AGU/EGU session
• Special issue of a journal
• Coordinated case studies?
• What about other regions?

Back to Ballater workshop page