River Restoration
The restoration of rivers and streams has attracted increased interest and funding in recent years, as a result of legal requirements to mitigate damage to important habitats and as a positive avenue through which citizens can take steps to improve their environment.  Rive restoration is undertaken for a variety of goals, including restoration or enhancement of aquatic and riparian habitat, provision of functional recreational corridors in urban areas, and to improve water quality.  River restoration activities include recreation of meander bends on straightened channels, modification of channel geometry to create habitat for fish, planting banks with riparian vegetation, and creating open channels from streams formerly encased in underground culverts.  Ironically, the attractiveness of river restoration today is possible only following the elimination of point sources of water pollution effected in recent decades (in the US as a result of the Clean Water Act).

River and stream restoration does not constitute a separate field or a unique bag-of-tricks to be used on degraded rivers.  Rather, restoration involves the intelligent and integrated application of knowledge and techniques from other fields, such as ecology, hydrology, and geomorphology.  While the goals of restoration projects are often ecological in nature, the hydrology and geomorphology of the channel commonly determines whether the project ultimately achieves its objectives.  (As noted by the National Research Council in its 1992 report Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems, many river restoration projects have failed because they were based more on 'folklore' than sound hydrologic and geomorphic analyses.)   Thus, the application of sound geomorphic analysis is prerequisite to successful restoration planning and design.

Given the inherent complexity of river processes, channel form, and aquatic and riparian ecology, it is simply not possible at our present level of knowledge to predict with certainty the behavior of a river channel in response to specific alterations.  As a result, each restoration project can best be viewed as an experiment, from which considerable knowledge can be obtained to inform future projects, provided the current project is objectively documented and evaluated, and the results of the evaluation widely disseminated.
 

SELECTED RELEVANT PUBLICATIONS

Kondolf, G.M. River restoration and meanders. Ecology and Society (in press)

Kondolf, G.M., A. Boulton, S. O'Daniel, G. Poole, F. Rahel, E. Stanley, E. Wohl, A. Bang, J. Carlstrom, C. Cristoni, H. Huber, S. Koljonen, P. Louhi, and K. Nakamura. Process-based ecological river restoration: Visualising three-dimensional connectivity and dynamic vectors to recover lost linkages. Ecology and Society (in press)

Kondolf, G.M.  2006. River and stream restoration. In American Planning Association Planning and urban design standards (pp. 122-124). John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, N.J.

Simon, A., M. Doyle, G.M. Kondolf, F.D. Shields, Jr., B. Rhoads, G. Grant, F. Fitzpatrick, K. Juracek, M. McPhillips, and J. MacBroom. 2005.  How Well Do the Rosgen Classification and Associated "Natural Channel Design" Methods Integrate and Quantify Fluvial Processes and Channel Response? ASCE Conference Proceedings 173: 584-595.

Wohl, E., P.L. Angermeier, B. Bledsoe, G.M. Kondolf, L. MacDonnell, D.M. Merritt, M.A. Palmer, N.L. Poff, and D. Tarboton. 2005. River restoration. Water Resources Research 41, W10301, doi:10.1029/2005WR003985.

Palmer, M.A., E.S. Bernhardt, J.D. Allan, P.S. Lake, G. Alexander, S. Brooks, J. Carr, S. Clayton, C. Dahm, J. Follstad Shah, D.L. Galat, S. Gloss, P. Goodwin, D.H. Hart, B. Hassett, R. Jenkinson, G.M. Kondolf, R. Lave, J.L. Meyer, T.K. O’Donnell, L. Pagano, P. Srivastava, and E. Sudduth. 2005. Standards for ecologically successful river restoration. Journal of Applied Ecology 42:208-217.

Bernhardt, E.S., M.A. Palmer, J.D. Allan, G. Alexander, K. Barnes, S. Brooks, J. Carr, S. Clayton, C. Dahm, J. Follsted-Shah, D. Galat, S. Gloss, P. Goodwin, D. Hart, B. Hassett, R. Jenkinson, S. Katz, G.M. Kondolf, P.S. Lake, R. Lave, J.L. Meyer, T.K. O’Donnell, L. Pagano, B. Powell, and E. Sudduth.  2005. Synthesizing U.S. river restoration efforts. Science 308:636-637.

Tompkins, M.R., and G.M. Kondolf. 2003. Integrating geomorphic process approach in riparian and stream restoration: Past experience and future opportunities. In P.M. Faber (ed.) California riparian systems: Processes and floodplain management, ecology, and restoration (pp. 230-238). Riparian Habitat and Floodplains Conference Proceedings, Riparian Habitat Joint Venture, Sacramento.

Kondolf, G.M., and H. Piégay, eds. 2003. Tools in fluvial geomorphology.  John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 696 pp.

Kondolf, G.M., H. Piégay, and D. Sear. 2003. Integrating geomorphological tools in ecological and management studies. In G.M. Kondolf and H. Piégay (eds.) Tools in Fluvial Geomorphology (pp. 633-660). John Wiley & Sons, New York.

Downs, P.W., K.S. Skinner, and G.M. Kondolf. 2002. Rivers and streams. In M.R. Perrow and A.J. Davy (eds.) Handbook of Ecological Restoration, Chapter 13,Volume Two (pp. 267-296). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Downs, P.W., and G.M. Kondolf. 2002. Post-project appraisal in adaptive management of river channel restoration. Environmental Management 29:477-496.

Kondolf, G.M., H. Piégay, and N. Landon. 2002. Channel response to increased and decreased bedload supply from land-use change: Contrasts between two catchments. Geomorphology 45:35-51.

Kondolf, G.M., M.W. Smeltzer, and S. Railsback. 2001. Design and performance of a channel reconstruction project in a coastal California gravel-bed stream. Environmental Management 28(6):761-776.

Kondolf, G.M. 2001. Historical changes to the San Francisco Bay-Delta watershed: Implications for ecosystem restoration. In H.J. Nijland and M.J.R. Cals (eds.) River Restoration in Europe: Practical Approaches (Proceedings of the Conference on River Restoration, Wageningen, Netherlands, May 2000) (pp. 327-338).

Kondolf, G.M. 2000. Process vs form in restoration of rivers and streams. In D.L. Scheu (ed.) 2000 Annual Meeting Proceedings of the American Society of Landscape Architects, St. Louis, MO (pp.120-124). American Society of Landscape Architects, Washington D.C.

Lassettre, N.S., and G.M. Kondolf. 2000. Process-based woody material management of the basin scale: Soquel Creek, California. In W.H. Russell and C. Winslow (eds) Conference on the restoration and management of coastal redwood forests (pp. 27-30). Mendocino Institute, Fort Bragg, CA.

Kondolf, G.M. 2000. Assessing salmonid spawning gravels. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 129:262-281.

Kondolf, G.M., and A. Adhikari. 2000. Weibull vs. lognormal distributions for fluvial gravels. Journal of Sedimentary Research 70(3):456-460.

Kondolf, G.M. 2000. Some suggested guidelines for geomorphic aspects of anadromous salmonid habitat restoration proposals. Restoration Ecology 8(1):48-56.

Kondolf, G.M. 1998. Lessons learned from river restoration projects in California. Aquatic Conservation 8:39-52.

Kondolf, G.M. 1998. Post-project evaluation of river and stream restoration. In R.G. Bailey, P.V. Jose, and R.R. Sherwood (eds.) United Kingdom Floodplains (Proceedings of a Conference on British Floodplains, Linnean Society, London, October 1995) (pp. 466-473). Westbury Publishing, Otley, North Yorkshire UK.

Kondolf, G.M., J.C. Vick, and T.M. Ramirez. 1996. Salmon spawning habitat rehabilitation on the Merced River, California: An evaluation of project planning and performance. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 125:899-912.

Kondolf, G.M., J.C. Vick, and T. Ramirez. 1996. Salmonid spawning habitat restoration in the San Joaquin River basin, California: An evaluation of project planning and success. Report No. 90, Centers for Water and Wildland Resources, University of California, Davis, June 1996.

Haltiner, J., G.M. Kondolf, and P.B. Williams. 1996. Restoration approaches in California. In A. Brookes and D. Shields (eds.) River Channel Restoration (pp.291-329). John Wiley & Sons, Chichester.

Kondolf, G.M., and P. Downs. 1996. Catchment approach to channel restoration. In A. Brookes and D. Shields (eds.) River Channel Restoration (pp.129-148). John Wiley & Sons, Chichester.

Kondolf, G.M., and E.M. Micheli. 1995. Evaluating stream restoration projects. Environmental Management 19:1-15.

Kondolf, G.M. 1995. Geomorphological stream channel classification in aquatic habitat restoration: Uses and limitations. Aquatic Conservation 5:127-141.

Kondolf, G.M., and M. Larson. 1995. Historical channel analysis and its application to riparian and aquatic habitat restoration. Aquatic Conservation 5:109-126.

Kondolf, G.M. 1995. Five elements for effective evaluation of stream restoration. Restoration Ecology 3(2):133-136.

Kondolf, G.M., P. Vorster, and J.G. Williams. 1990. Hydrologic and channel stability considerations in stream habitat restoration. In J. Berger (ed.) Environmental Restoration (pp. 214-227). Island Press, Washington DC.
 
Planting the constructed floodplain, Carmel River Schulte Rd project (photo by Kondolf 1988)


Wraysbury River, Thames River basin, UK (photo by Kondolf 1992)


The Miller Creek compound channel, Marin County, California (photo by Kondolf)


Deep Run, Maryland (photo by Kondolf 2000)