Introduction to Stream Restoration - Hydro-Environmental Analysis: Freshwater Environments - page 212

FIGURE 8.1 Example of wetland mitigation project for a bottomland forest, a cooperative project between
the Ohio Department of Transportation and Ohio State's Wilma H. Schiermier Olentangy River Wetland
Research Park, which is one of 24 Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance in the United States.

this chapter, we will irst review some of the common causes of the degradation of the “physical,
chemical, and biological integrity” and then some of the common methods used in restoration.
Since about 1990, river restoration projects, and the literature related to those projects, have
increased nearly exponentially in the United States, with annual expenditures of $1 billion or more
(Bernhardt et al. 2005; Palmer et al. 2007; Figure 8.2), and the need for restoration of rivers and
streams will increase for the foreseeable future (Palmer et al. 2007). Restoration has become an
integral component of environmental policy in many areas of the world (e.g., White et al. 1999;
Bernhardt et al. 2005; Palmer et al. 2005; Lake et al. 2007).
The National Biological Information Infrastructure has compiled the National River Restoration
Science Synthesis (NRRSS) database, containing records of 37,000 stream restoration projects
throughout the United States, with concentrations in seven regions of the country—California,

6000

100

No. of project records
No. of newspaper articles
No. of scientific articles

5000

80

4000

60

3000

40

2000

20

1000

0 0

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

Ye ar

FIGURE 8.2 Rates of increase in restoration projects. (From Bernhardt, E.S. et al., Science , 308, 636-637,
2005. Reprinted with permission of AAAS.)