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Rehabilitating Valley Floors to a Stage 0 Condition: A Synthesis of Opening Outcomes

Authors :
Rebecca L. Flitcroft
William R. Brignon
Brian Staab
J. Ryan Bellmore
Jonathan Burnett
Paul Burns
Brian Cluer
Guillermo Giannico
Joseph M. Helstab
Jeremy Jennings
Christopher Mayes
Celeste Mazzacano
Lauren Mork
Kate Meyer
Jay Munyon
Brooke E. Penaluna
Paul Powers
Daniel N. Scott
Steven M. Wondzell
Source :
Frontiers in Environmental Science, Vol 10 (2022)
Publication Year :
2022
Publisher :
Frontiers Media S.A., 2022.

Abstract

Degraded floodplains and valley floors are restored with the goal of enhancing habitat for native fish and aquatic-riparian biota and the protection or improvement of water quality. Recent years have seen a shift toward “process-based restoration” that is intended to reestablish compromised ecogeomorphic processes resulting from site- or watershed-scale degradation. One form of process-based restoration has developed in the Pacific Northwest, United States, that is intended to reconnect rivers to their floodplains by slowing down flows of sediment, water, and nutrients to encourage lateral and vertical connectivity at base flows, facilitating development of dynamic, self-forming, and self-sustaining river-wetland corridors. Synergies between applied practices and the theoretical work of Cluer and Thorne in 2014 have led this form of restoration to be referred to regionally as restoration to a Stage 0 condition. This approach to rehabilitation is valley scale, rendering traditional monitoring strategies that target single-thread channels inadequate to capture pre- and post-project site conditions, thus motivating the development of novel monitoring approaches. We present a specific definition of this new type of rehabilitation that was developed in collaborative workshops with practitioners of the approach. Further, we present an initial synthesis of results from monitoring activities that provide a foundation for understanding the effects of this approach of river rehabilitation on substrate composition, depth to groundwater, water temperature, macroinvertebrate richness and abundance, secondary macroinvertebrate production, vegetation conditions, wood loading and configuration, water inundation, flow velocity, modeled juvenile salmonid habitat, and aquatic biodiversity.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
2296665X
Volume :
10
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Frontiers in Environmental Science
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.bf4de1ed46234c318863cc9565494487
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.892268