Lessons Learned from Riparian Restoration
Eric McCulley1
1RiverRestoration
The practice of restoring floodplains and riparian areas across the Intermountain West (and the World) has been filled with learning and progress over the last several decades (centuries). When we implement projects, we learn about how ecosystems work every time we try to “fix” them. This learning leads to progress in the science of river and floodplain restoration if the lessons learned are shared with a broad audience. Many restoration projects get completed and then no one ever checks to see if the benefits proposed for the project have been sustainable or even if they were successful in the first place. In this presentation, I will go through a variety of projects where lessons have been learned about how Mother Nature reacts to the work we do on the ground. Water does not always do what you want it to do, and ecosystems do not always react in the way we predict, so a robust adaptive management strategy can improve project outcomes. Bring your own lessons learned to the discussion.