# Presentation: 015745

## Floodplain Management Session 13Biology Management and restoration of floodplain ecologyPrepared by Susan Bolton, PhD, PE

**Notes:**
Title slide for session 13

## Management and Restoration of 

**Floodplain Ecology**

**Objectives:**
- 13.1	Explain critical concepts for effective 	river/floodplain restoration
- 13.2	Describe ways that rivers and their associated 	floodplains can be ecologically improved.
- 13.3	Give examples of successes and failures in 	floodplain restoration projects
- 13.4	Discuss management and restoration functions 	within the context of case study floodplains

**Notes:**
Slide outlines the objectives for session 13

## Management and Restoration of 

**Floodplain Ecology**

**Objective 13.1:**
- Explain critical concepts for effective river/floodplain restoration

**Notes:**
Slide introduces objective 13.1

## Principles for Ecological Restoration of Floodplains

-  Identify relationships between human activities and key ecological processes

- Slide from Dave Cowley and Jon Boren
- New Mexico State University

**Notes:**
Slide exhibits the relationship between human activities and ecological processes. The first picture shows a herd of cattle walking alongea river channel. The second picture shows a culvert draining an agricultural field. The sediment laden water flowing from the field is a different color than the stream

## 2.  Identify ecological limitations that may constrain restoration (e.g. alterations in hydrologic regime due to human actions such as dams, diversions, urbanization, etc.)

**Notes:**
The slide illustrates ecological limits that may constrain restoration. The left slide is of a river flowing through a concrete channel. The right slide shows many bridges, dams and a large city around a major river. 

## Recognize the system’s inherent limitations: climate, physiography, biogeography, hydrology, etc.

Wherever possible, reconnect the longitudinal, lateral, and vertical components of the river and floodplain.

Do not expect find ‘a smoking gun.’ Causes and cumulative effects that damage rivers and floodplain ecosystems are complex and pervasive. Response to restoration can be complex and unpredictable.

- Wherever possible, reconnect the longitudinal, lateral, and vertical components of the river and floodplain.
- Do not expect find ‘a smoking gun.’ Causes and cumulative effects that damage rivers and floodplain ecosystems are complex and pervasive. Response to restoration can be complex and unpredictable.

**Notes:**
Slide lists 3 more critical principles for restoration

- Eliminate the causes of degradation rather than addressing symptoms of the degradation.
- 7.   Fully evaluate engineering fixes for ecological ramifications. Enhancing natural recovery processes is usually cheaper and more likely to be successful in the long-term.

**Notes:**
Slide lists two more critical restoration principles

- 8.  Riverine systems are highly variable in space and time even under natural conditions. Restoration should not seek to homogenize the system.

**Notes:**
Slide shows another principle.

## Restoration projects need to have specific and measurable goals

Vague goal, hard to measure
Improve fish habitat

Better goal, easier to measure
Increase spawning habitat by 20%

- Vague goal, hard to measure
- Improve fish habitat
- Better goal, easier to measure
- Increase spawning habitat by 20%

**Notes:**
Slide gives examples of poor and better goals. 

## Ecological engineering principles for floodplain restoration

- Take advantage of ecosystem properties
- Ecosystems are diverse, patchy, complex and self-organizing
- Floods are a normal and vital ecological process
- Strive to permit flooding within reasonable boundaries
- Rivers in floodplains are mobile
- Strive to allow the river to move in a natural fashion

**Notes:**
Slide discusses ecological engineering principles.

## Questions to ask yourself

- What is here?
- What will nature allow us to do here?
- What will nature help us do here?
- What can local communities contribute to design awareness?
- How can we design safe-fail not fail-safe systems?>

**Notes:**
Slide lists important questions to ask before restoration.

## Management and Restoration of 

**Floodplain Ecology**

**Objective 13.2:**
- Describe ways that rivers and their associated floodplains can be ecologically improved

**Notes:**
Slide outlines objective 12.2

## Anacostia Watershed Restoration Agreement, 1988

- 170 square mile watershed
- Population > 800,000
- Identified 7 ecologically-based restoration goals

**Notes:**
Slide gives information on the Anacostia Watershed

## Anacostia River Restoration

- Reduce pollutant loads of toxics, sewage, sediment and debris
- (improves water quality)

**Notes:**
Slide lists goal of reducing pollutant loads. Picture is of a water hole surrounded by a golf course.

## Anacostia River Restoration

- Protect and restore ecological integrity of streams
-   (reconnect floodplain components and control
-     stormwater runoff)

- Development in the upstream watershed
-  has increased channel discharge and
-  contributed to channel incision.

- New
- Stormwater
- Management
- Facililty

**Notes:**
Slide lists the goal of protecting ecological integrity. Left picture shows an incised channel. Right picture shows a stormwater management faciilty consisting of linked retention ponds. 

## Anacostia

- Restore spawning range of anadramous fish
- Remove fish barriers (improves transport of materials and restores longitudinal connectivity)

- Culverts that impede fish passage
-  will be removed or modified

**Notes:**
Slide shows goal of restoring spawning range of migratory fish. Picture is of a perched culvert that is inaccessible to fish traveling upstream. 

## Anacostia

- Increase quantity and quality of wetlands
- (improves connectivity, complexity and helps control floods)

**Notes:**
Slide talks about wetlands. The slide shows before and after pictures of a small wetland. 

## Anacostia

- Increase forest cover in the watershed, especially along the rivers (provides shade, organic input, bank stability, habitat complexity)

**Notes:**
Slide talks about increasing forest cover along rivers. Pictures is a set of 3 photos showing the progress of a site from devegetation to restoration to revegetation. 

## Anacostia

- Increase public awareness and involvement (includes human components of ecosystem)
- Develop specific and quantifiable goals and targets by which to measure restoration progress

**Notes:**
Slide talks about other Anacostia goals.

## Danube River Restoration

- Approach is ecosystem not species oriented
- Fosters hydrologic and geomorphic processes (let the river do the work)

**Notes:**
Slide introduces restoration on the Danube River. 

## Regulation and alteration of Danube River started in 1875
Effects immediate and widespread
Loss of off-channel habitat
Reduced connectivity
Lowered water table
Reduced magnitude and frequency of geomorphic processes
Concentration of erosive forces

- Effects immediate and widespread
- Loss of off-channel habitat
- Reduced connectivity
- Lowered water table
- Reduced magnitude and frequency of geomorphic processes
- Concentration of erosive forces

- Restoration of the Danube River

**Notes:**
Slide gives history of alterations to the Danube River. 

## Danube River Restoration

- Constraints are set by present day pollution and nutrient loads as well altered hydrologic and sediment regimes and concerns for protection against flooding of human structures and need to maintain shipping.

- www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Image:Wien040531w.jpg

**Notes:**
Slide discusses constraints to restoration of the Danube River. Photo is of Vienna and the Dabube River. 

## Danube River RestorationActions

- Lower riverside embankments to increase lateral connectivity
- Create more openings in embankments to allow more lateral connectivity

- Impounded river with artificial dike
- and drainage canal (left)
- Photo: B. Lotsch

**Notes:**
Slide lists options for restoration of the Danube. Photo shows an impounded river with a dike and a drainage canal. 

## Danube River RestorationActions

- Lower weirs on side channels to facilitate more natural water retention times and create a more continuous water course

**Notes:**
Slide lists another option for restoration. Slide shows dikes and weirs along the Danube River.

## Danube River RestorationActions

- Develop an extensive monitoring system to include hydrologic, geomorphic, biological indicators.

**Notes:**
Slide lists another restoration action. 

## Flooding is a natural and recurring process

- Evidence from the Mississippi River indicate that flood control structures such as levees may have exacerbated the flood damage

**Notes:**
Slide talks about flooding as a natural process. 

## River Stage

- Discharge
- Comparisons

- Lower graph shows that smaller
- discharges
- have higher stages now
- than they did before- higher stage means more area is flooded

**Notes:**
Graph of river stage vs. time for annual peak floods at St. Louis. Different symbols represent different discharge ranges, from small, <11 325 m3/s, events (open circles) to major floods with >25 480 m3/s (large open squares; cf. Table 1  ). Linear regressions for all but smallest discharge ranges have positive slopes, indicating that flood stages have steadily increased. B: Correlations between discharge and stage, or rating curves, for annual floods before 1904 (top curve, triangles) and after 1980 (bottom curve, squares), illustrating profound changes in channel. If 1844 flow occurred today, river would top St. Louis levee by >1.5 m. All data are from U.S. Geological Survey. 

## Using floods to restore ecology

- In 1996 and 2004 controlled floods
- were used on the Colorado River
- below Glen Canyon Dam to redistribute downstream sediment, alter vegetation
- patterns and increase native fish habitat

**Notes:**
Slide talks about using controlled floods to restore ecology. Photo is of the Glen Canyon Dam doing a flood release to restore downstream river habitat.

## Common causes of failure in floodplain restoration

- Incomplete understanding of ecological history of the area (what will nature allow you to do?)
- Applying restoration efforts at the incorrect scale (trying to stabilize a cut bank in meandering river)
- Treating the symptoms (e.g. floods, fishery declines, sedimentation) rather than the causes of the situation)

**Notes:**
Slide lists common failures in restoration.

## Common causes of failure in floodplain restoration

- Forgetting to integrate restoration effort with ecological principles
- Inadequate definition of goals and objectives
- Failure to monitor outcomes and adaptively manage

**Notes:**
Slide lists more types of failures in restoration.