River restoration has become a focus of ecologists, engineers, fisheries scientists, and landscape architects throughout the world. Three fundamental characteristics of ecologically sound river restoration frequently are missing from many projects. River restoration should be designed to 1) restore rivers, 2) restore river dynamism, and 3) anticipate future human and natural change. Examples will be provided from around the world that reflect these three attributes in restoration.
First, most restoration projects focus on parcels of land rather than viewing a river with two banks and floodplains. Such restoration largely involves transferring perspectives for restoring a plot of land into a riverine environment. In contrast, the river should be viewed as a dynamic network, with spatial frameworks that extend from the network to regional segments to local reaches to project sites. Critical design elements are required at all four scales. But most of all, the project must be viewed as a river, dynamic and changing, reflecting the structure and processes across and along the local reach and nested within the larger river network. Second, many projects construct the structure of the channel, floodplain, and riparian plant communities. Often, the project is designed to be fixed and permanent, unchanging laterally and vertically. Plant communities are planted and maintained, more like gardening that succession of riparian forests and wetlands. The one fundamental property of rivers is dynamism, a concept reflected in both philosophy and river science. But human communities resist dynamism and view rivers as extensions of property. Change is undesirable and uncertainty is abhorred. River engineers often seek to serve social needs and attempt to create relatively static and unchanging stream ecosystems. In contrast, river dynamics can be used as the central process of restoration and create trajectories of recovery that are self-maintained and not addicted to continued human intervention. The thirds criterion of effective river restoration requires anticipation of future change. The distribution and influence of human communities is often viewed simply in the present and does not account for future growth and changing land use. Climate and biophysical processes similarly viewed as unchanging for the foreseeable future. Both assumptions are ludicrous in an ever changing world. Warming global climate trends are increasing thermal stresses on aquatic ecosystems and risks of extirpation of extinction for many species. Human growth challenges the available landscape and its productivity. Examples from the Willamette River in Oregon will illustrate how trajectories of future change can be quantified and incorporated in the restoration of river networks and provide resistance and resilience for river ecosystems in the face of changing climate.