Watershed Restoration

Significance Spatial misalignments between governance and environmental systems, often called spatial scale mismatch, are a key sustainability challenge. Collaboration and coordination networks can help overcome scale mismatch problems and should align with the environmental system. Using an approach based on network science, this paper advances scale mismatch analysis by explicitly considering collaborations among local and regional organizations doing estuary watershed restoration (i.e., multilevel governance) and how these collaborations align with environmental patterns. Collaboration quality is considered to inform network-based theories for natural resource governance. Integrating network analysis results with ecological habitat data further provides a social–environmental restoration planning perspective. This research can help policymakers allocate resources and is a fundamental step toward addressing scale mismatch while considering multilevel governance. Resource management boundaries seldom align with environmental systems, which can lead to social and ecological problems. Mapping and analyzing how resource management organizations in different areas collaborate can provide vital information to help overcome such misalignment. Few quantitative approaches exist, however, to analyze social collaborations alongside environmental patterns, especially among local and regional organizations (i.e., in multilevel governance settings). This paper develops and applies such an approach using social–ecological network analysis (SENA), which considers relationships among and between social and ecological units. The framework and methods are shown using an estuary restoration case from Puget Sound, United States. Collaboration patterns and quality are analyzed among local and regional organizations working in hydrologically connected areas. These patterns are correlated with restoration practitioners’ assessments of the productivity of their collaborations to inform network theories for natural resource governance. The SENA is also combined with existing ecological data to jointly consider social and ecological restoration concerns. Results show potentially problematic areas in nearshore environments, where collaboration networks measured by density (percentage of possible network connections) and productivity are weakest. Many areas also have high centralization (a few nodes hold the network together), making network cohesion dependent on key organizations. Although centralization and productivity are inversely related, no clear relationship between density and productivity is observed. This research can help practitioners to identify where governance capacity needs strengthening and jointly consider social and ecological concerns. It advances SENA by developing a multilevel approach to assess social–ecological (or social–environmental) misalignments, also known as scale mismatches.

Introduction: Book Scope and Background, P Roni Steps for Designing a Monitoring and Evaluation Program for Aquatic Restoration, P Roni, M C Liermann, C Jordan, and E: Ashley Steel, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, USA Monitoring Treatments to Reduce Sediment and Hydrologic Effects from Roads, T J Beechle, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, USA, C N Veidhuisen, Skagit System Cooperative, USA, D E Schuett-Hames, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, USA, P DeVries, R2 Resource Consultants, USA, R H Conrad, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, USA, and E M Beamer, Skagit System Cooperative, USA Monitoring Restoration of Riparian Forests, M M Pollock and T Beechie. Northwest Fisheries Science Center, USA, S Chan, US Forest Service, USA, and R Bigley, Washington State Department of Natural Resources, USA Riparian Restoration through Grazing Management Considerations for Monitoring Project Effectiveness, A L Medina, US Department of Agriculture, USA, P Roni, and J N Rinne, US Department of Agriculture, USA Monitoring Floodplain Restoration, G R Pess and S A Morley, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, USA, and J L Hall and R K Timm, University of Washington, USA Monitoring Rehabilitation in Temperate North American Estuaries, C A Rice, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, USA, W G Hood, Skagit System Cooperative, USA, L M Tear, Parametrix, Inc., USA, C A Simenstad, University of Washington, USA, L L Johnson, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, USA, G D Williams, Battelle Marine Sciences Laboratory, USA, P Roni, and B E Feist, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, USA Monitoring and Evaluating Instream Habitat Enhancement, P Roni, and A H Fayram and M A Miller, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, USA Monitoring the Effects of Nutrient Enrichment on Freshwater Ecosystems, P M Kiffney. Northwest Fisheries Science Center, USA, R E Bilby, Weyerhaeuser Co., USA, and B L Sanderson, Northwest Fisheries Science Center Evaluating Fish Response to Culvert Replacement and Other Methods for Reconnecting Isolated Aquatic Habitats, G Pess, S Morley, and P Roni Monitoring of Acquisitions and Conservation Easements, G Lucchetti, K O Richter, and R E Schaefer, King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks, USA The Economic Evaluation of Stream and Watershed Restoration Projects, M L Plummer, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, USA

Collaborative watershed management initiatives have increased tremendously over the past decade. One of the critical questions for these initiatives is how to influence private land management practices to improve watershed health. This article researches landowner motivations and preferences for watershed restoration efforts in five watersheds in Western Oregon. Based on a survey of 446 landowners and 80 personal interviews, the research revealed that landowner perspectives vary by socio-economic, cultural, and land use characteristics. They are strongly motivated by a concern for future generations and interpersonal influence is particularly important. Finances, time, and unfamiliarity were all significant barriers to the adoption of conservation practices. The findings also revealed considerable variation among landowners as to their trusted sources of information and preferred outreach methods. Beyond the findings in Oregon, the research suggests that watershed initiatives need to understand landowner characteristics and motivating factors to better promote watershed restoration and target outreach efforts.

Globally, ecological restoration activities are increasing in response to environmental, economic, and cultural trends that value ecological capital for the services provided by healthy functioning ecosystems. To ensure continued investment in ecological restoration, practitioners and researchers need to identify links to the benefits accrued to society from ecological restoration practice and policy. Nonetheless, a recent review of published literature on ecological restoration concludes that the policy and socioeconomic contributions of ecological restoration are often ignored. To help fill this gap, we describe the policy context of a sustained program of forest and watershed restoration in Oregon, U.S.A. and report on three related studies on the market structure and resulting economic impacts of this program of work in Oregon. The first study examines the experiences of watershed councils (n = 52) in mobilizing human resources for ecological restoration. The second focuses on the businesses and firms (n = 190) that participate in Oregon's restoration economy. The third analyzes the employment and economic impacts from a sample of Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board restoration grants (n = 99). We found that the sustained program of restoration work in Oregon has conferred significant benefits to Oregon's economy. These impacts largely accrue to rural areas in need of economic development opportunities due to declines in traditional resource management activities. In addition to approximately 16 jobs supported per million dollars invested in ecological restoration, a sustained investment in restoration has created both new local organizational capacity in watershed councils and other community‐based partners and business opportunities especially in rural Oregon.

Preface. 1. Introduction to Landform grading and Revegetation. 2. Surficial Erosion and Mass Wasting of Slopes. 3. Influence of Vegetation on Hillside Stability. 4. Influence of Topography on Slope Stability and Hydrology. 5. Geomorphic Evolution of Slopes. Hillside Grading Fundamentals. 7. Principles of Landform Grading. 8. Essential Design Elements for Slope Forms and Landforms. 9. Implementation of the Landform Grading Plan. 10. Public and Regulatory Response to Landform Grading. 11. Landforming Projects-Watershed Restoration and Mining Reclamation. 12. Landforming Projects-Hillside Developments and Mass-Grading Applications. Appendix. Index.

With $2 billion spent annually on stream restoration worldwide, there is a pressing need for guidance in this area, but until now, there was no comprehensive text on the subject. Filling that void, this unique text covers both new and existing information following a stepwise approach on theory, planning, implementation, and evaluation methods for the restoration of stream habitats. Comprehensively illustrated with case studies from around the world, Stream and Watershed Restoration provides a systematic approach to restoration programs suitable for graduate and upper-level undergraduate courses on stream or watershed restoration or as a reference for restoration practitioners and fisheries scientists. Part of the Advancing River Restoration and Management Series.

Over the past two decades, watershed restoration has dramatically increased internationally. California has been at the forefront, allocating billions of dollars to restoration activities through legislation and voter‐approved bonds. Yet, the implications of restoration remain ambiguous because there has been little examination of restoration accomplishments and almost no analysis of the political context of restoration. This article addresses these gaps, utilizing a case study of the Russian River basin in Northern California. We identify trends that shed light on both the ecological and the political implications of restoration at a basin scale by examining a database of 787 restoration projects implemented in the Russian River basin since the early 1980s. Although a total of over $47 million has been spent on restoration in the basin, dominant forms of restoration are limited in scope to small‐scale projects that focus on technical solutions to site‐specific problems. The majority of restoration efforts are devoted to road repair, riparian stabilization, and in‐stream structures, accounting for 62% of all projects. These types of projects do not address the broader social drivers of watershed change such as land and water uses. We suggest that restoration can become more effective by addressing the entire watershed as a combination of social and ecological forces that interact to produce watershed conditions.

Abstract:  Two CVM surveys were administered to 211 urban households and 188 rural farmer‐irrigators in the Comarapa watershed in Bolivia, South America, to estimate stakeholder willingness to pay (WTP) for a proposed upper watershed restoration program. Mean monthly household WTP to improve drinking water was $1.95 (65% of current charges), while mean annual WTP among farmer‐irrigators to improve irrigation water was $17 per hectare (34% of current costs). Aggregated to the entire population of households and farmer‐irrigators total WTP is $77,400 per year, which is 77% of the minimum cost to implement a watershed restoration program.

Until recently, in British Columbia, there was no mechanism to ensure the rehabilitation of resource values adversely impacted by logging-induced landslides, erosion from logging roads, and harvesting of mature riparian trees to the streambank. In 1994, the Watershed Restoration Program was initiated under the province's Forest Renewal Plan to provide an opportunity for diverse stakeholder partnerships to accelerate the recovery of watersheds impacted by logging practices of the past. Several decades of research on watershed processes, limitations to salmonid production in streams and rehabilitation techniques, combined with provincial training initiatives, provide the technical basis for application of a set of integrated restorative measures linked to the new Forest Practices Code. As first priority, the conditions of roads, slopes, gullies, riparian areas, stream channels and fish habitat are assessed. Roads are storm proofed by either reestablishing natural drainage patterns or by deactivation. Hillslope scars are revegetated with grasses, shrubs and trees to control erosion, thus increasing fish stock productivity, while also improving water quality, forest regeneration and biodiversity. Riparian silvicultural treatments eventually (one to two centuries) restore recruitment of large coniferous woody debris to stream channels and restabilize streambanks. Large wood, boulder clusters and other structural elements that emulate nature are installed in stable stream channels to restore summer habitat and critical overwintering refuges in streams, thus rehabilitating and maintaining fish habitat until logged riparian areas naturally supply mature windfalls. Restoring of fish access and replenishing of nutrients for the food chain are also provided where assessed as beneficial to the functional recovery process. Rehabilitation of off-channel fish habitat, including creation of channel-pond complexes, is one of the primary techniques to offset habitat degradation in hydrologically unstable or non-functional stream channels within logged floodplains. The program provides an opportunity for innovation and evaluation, as well as a challenge to cost-effectively implement rehabilitation on a sufficient scale to accelerate the recovery of watershed processes to the benefit of fisheries, aquatic and forest resource values in British Columbia's forested watersheds.

When using a willingness-to-pay (WTP) format in contingent valuation (CV) to value watershed restoration, respondents may protest by questioning why they should pay to clean up a pollution problem that someone else created. Using a sample selection interval data model based on Bhat (1994) and Brox, Kumar, and Stollery (2003), we found that the decision to protest and WTP values were correlated. Protest sample selection bias resulted in a 300 percent overestimate of mean WTP per respondent. Using different ad hoc treatments of protesters, protest bias resulted in moderate effects (−10 percent to +14 percent) after controlling for sample selection bias.