| Title | Evaluating stream restoration projects: what do we learn from monitoring? |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2017 |
| Authors | Rubin, Zan, Mathias G. Kondolf, and Blanca Rios-Touma |
| Secondary Title | Water |
| Volume | 9 |
| Number | 3 |
| Pagination | p.174-189 |
| Call Number | OSU Libraries: Electronic Subscription |
| Keywords | Umpqua River Basin, Coquille River Basin, aquatic invertebrates, restoration ecology, natural resource management, metrics, ecosystem modeling |
| Notes | How do we know stream restoration projects are successful? This valuable review addresses this question. Twenty-six studies, including one on the Umpqua and Coquille basins, are reviewed. The authors point out the limitations of assessment approaches. Problems with paired-catchment studies, such as the Hinkle Creek study, are noted. Counts of aquatic invertebrates are inadequate, since some invertebrates are not consumed by fish. The authors observe that studying food webs may be more important than diversity or abundance counts. “Prior to restoration, project designers and evaluators should develop conceptual models (which increasingly should include analytical reference states) of their ecosystems and consider success criteria carefully in light of predictions generated from these methods. Such an approach will add to the time and effort required for evaluation but it is probably wiser to do a good job evaluating fewer projects than a poor job attempting many superficial evaluations” (p.184). |
| DOI | 10.3390/w9030174 |
