HR: 09:30h
AN: H11F-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Assessing Long-Term, System-Wide Cumulative Benefits of Multiple Restoration Projects
AU: * KONDOLF, G M
EM: kondolf@berkeley.edu
AF: University of California, 202 Wurster Hall Department of Land Arch and Environmental Planning, Berkeley, CA 94705 United States
AB: Most river restoration projects in North America have been at a relatively small scale, and even most large restoration programs consist of multiple small projects. The CALFED Bay-Delta Program, encompassing the San Francisco Estuary system and its watershed in northern California, is one of the largest ongoing restoration programs in the nation, with over 500 million invested in restoration projects from 1997 to 2004. Yet when we look at the results of these and other restoration efforts to date in the context of habitat losses and fish population declines since European settlement in 1850, it is clear that even a restoration effort on this scale will not reverse large-scale historical changes, so restoration in this context must involve making incremental improvements within a highly altered system. The question becomes how to best allocate the (always limited) available resources strategically to achieve realistic restoration goals. For example, is it better to make small investments in many rivers or concentrate on larger projects in one or a few? An overall conceptual model on a basin scale and over a long time period is needed as a framework in which to evaluate the cumulative contributions of different possible projects. Along the Merced and Tuolumne Rivers, multiple abandoned gravel pits interrupt sediment transport continuity and provide habitat for exotic fish that prey on juvenile salmon. To reduce predation and restore river function, some of these pits have been repaired (and the channel restored), at a cost to date of about 30 million. Assuming different response functions, we can project the potential cumulative benefits of multiple projects.
DE: 1808 Dams
DE: 1815 Erosion
DE: 1825 Geomorphology: fluvial (1625)
DE: 1834 Human impacts
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005