The morphology of streams restored for market and nonmarket purposes: Insights from a mixed natural‐social science approach

We use geomorphic surveys to quantify the differences between restored and nonrestored streams, and the difference between streams restored for market purposes (compensatory mitigation) from those restored for nonmarket programs. We also analyze the social and political-economic drivers of the stream restoration and mitigation industry using analysis of policy documents and interviews with key personnel including regulators, mitigation bankers, stream designers, and scientists. Restored streams are typically wider and geomorphically more homogenous than nonrestored streams. Streams restored for the mitigation market are typically headwater streams and part of a large, complex of long restored main channels, and many restored tributaries; streams restored for nonmarket purposes are typically shorter and consist of the main channel only. Interviews reveal that designers integrate many influences including economic and regulatory constraints, but traditions of practice have a large influence as well. Thus, social forces shape the morphology of restored streams.

[1]  Todd BenDor,et al.  Landscape characteristics of a stream and wetland mitigation banking program. , 2009, Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America.

[2]  M. Urban.  Values and Ethical Beliefs Regarding Agricultural Drainage in Central Illinois, USA , 2005 .

[3]  F. Bombardelli,et al.  INTEGRATING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TO SUPPORT STREAM NATURALIZATION NEAR CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 1 , 2002 .

[4]  P. S. Lake,et al.  Local habitat restoration in streams: Constraints on the effectiveness of restoration for stream biota , 2003 .

[5]  R. Hey.  DETERMINATE HYDRAULIC GEOMETRY OF RIVER CHANNELS , 1978 .

[6]  L. Shabman,et al.  Rhetoric and Reality of Water Quality Trading and the Potential for Market‐like Reform 1 , 2011 .

[7]  Gregory E. Schwarz,et al.  Effect of stream channel size on the delivery of nitrogen to the Gulf of Mexico , 2000, Nature.

[8]  William A. Harman,et al.  HYDRAULIC GEOMETRY RELATIONSHIPS FOR URBAN STREAMS THROUGHOUT THE PIEDMONT OF NORTH CAROLINA 1 , 2002 .

[9]  A. Jacob Odgaard,et al.  Streambank erosion along two rivers in Iowa , 1987 .

[10]  F. D. Shields,et al.  Critical Evaluation of How the Rosgen Classification and Associated “Natural Channel Design” Methods Fail to Integrate and Quantify Fluvial Processes and Channel Response 1 , 2007 .

[11]  Rebecca Lave,et al.  Neoliberal Confluences: The Turbulent Evolution of Stream Mitigation Banking in the US , 2014 .

[12]  E. Schoenberger.  THE CORPORATE INTERVIEW AS A RESEARCH METHOD IN ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY , 1991 .

[13]  E. Herricks,et al.  Interaction Between Scientists and Nonscientists in Community-Based Watershed Management: Emergence of the Concept of Stream Naturalization , 1999, Environmental management.

[14]  Rebecca Lave,et al.  The Controversy Over Natural Channel Design: Substantive Explanations and Potential Avenues for Resolution 1 , 2009 .

[15]  M. Doyle,et al.  The Water Quality Consequences of Restoring Wetland Hydrology to a Large Agricultural Watershed in the Southeastern Coastal Plain , 2010, Ecosystems.

[16]  J. Olden,et al.  Process-Based Principles for Restoring River Ecosystems , 2010 .

[17]  E. Bernhardt,et al.  Effects of urbanization and urban stream restoration on the physical and biological structure of stream ecosystems. , 2011, Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America.

[18]  N. Gotelli,et al.  Effects of disturbance frequency, intensity, and area on assemblages of stream macroinvertebrates , 2000, Oecologia.

[19]  M. Rains,et al.  Hydrological Connectivity of Headwaters to Downstream Waters: Introduction to the Featured Collection , 2007 .

[20]  Cheryl C Harrelson,et al.  Stream Channel Reference Sites: An Illustrated Guide to Field Technique , 1994 .

[21]  James C. Scott,et al.  Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed , 1999 .

[22]  N. Bond,et al.  Linking ecological theory with stream restoration , 2007 .

[23]  M. Doyle,et al.  THE GEOGRAPHY OF TRADING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A CASE STUDY OF WETLAND AND STREAM COMPENSATORY MITIGATION MARKETS , 2009 .

[24]  F. D. Shields,et al.  Design for Stream Restoration , 2003 .

[25]  J. Boyd.  Compensating for Wetland Losses under the Clean Water Act , 2002 .

[26]  R. Lave.  Fields and Streams: Stream Restoration, Neoliberalism, and the Future of Environmental Science , 2012 .

[27]  J. Mount,et al.  Bank Erosion as a Desirable Attribute of Rivers , 2008 .