• NRRSS Project Description
  The National River Restoration Science Synthesis Project aims to provide a national level synthesis that can be used to inform policy at local, regional, and national levels. Our method will involve in-depth research at seven or eight geographic regions in the United States.
  The depth of analysis we propose can only be accomplished by harnessing the collective knowledge of widely respected research scientists with intimate knowledge of restoration practices and policies in their respective regions.
  Equally as important, the project will be designed with American Rivers' grassroots partners in mind, and the outcome of the analysis will be widely disseminated and available to policy makers and river restoration groups across the nation.
  
  
• The Problem
  Because streams and rivers are so important economically and ecologically, restoration of these ecosystems is receiving a lot of attention and enormous financial support.
  Restoration activities are diverse, ranging from channel engineering, to hydrologic experimentation, renewal of riparian vegetation, bank stabilization and habitat improvement.
  All levels of government, as well as volunteer groups and non-governmental organizations, are players. Projects vary in scope from some of the largest imaginable (e.g., the Everglades), to small reaches of headwater streams.
  While some of these efforts are being catalogued on a local or regional scale, few are analyzed at all, and even fewer are evaluated for ecological success.
  Both the development of restoration ecology as a science and the success ofrestoration projects depend on linking the practice with the science, yet many thousands of stream restoration activities take place annually, only a fraction of which benefit from the combined insights of practitioners and scientists.
  It is tragic, for example, that scores of dams have been removed in Pennsylvania over the past few years in an aggressive stream restoration program undertaken by the state, but almost no monitoring data were collected before or after the removals. Policy makers are making costly decisions about the types and location of restoration projects with little or no information on their effectiveness.
  
  
• Filling the Gap
  Our project is national in scope, and will draw on existing local and regional restoration databases and projects, but provide the in-depth research and analysis that scientists, citizens, restoration practitioners and policy makers currently lack. Our goal is to analyze the extent, nature, scientific basis and success of stream river restoration projects, and to present this information in a way that is useful to scientists, restoration practitioners, and those making policy decisions on what kinds of projects ought to receive priority for funding and implementation.
  Specifically, we will synthesize the regional data to:
  1) Evaluate the state of the practice of stream restoration nationally and identify successful demonstrations of different types of stream restoration, highlighting the reasons for their success.
  2) Produce a scientific document that examines the links between ecological theory and stream restoration (such as the roles of refugia, connectivity, and natural processes), and identifies the unanswered questions meriting further research.
  3) Develop a series of specific recommendations to improve how stream restoration is carried out and its success evaluated.
  4) Disseminate this information broadly and on an on-going basis.
  
  
• The Outcome
  The science team will refine the design criteria for selection of projects, and develop criteria to assess the quality of the science underlying the restoration efforts and their outcomes, using a broad range of descriptive data (e.g., who, what, where, restoration goals, outcome/results, costs, methods) from a representative sample of restoration projects from various regions within the U.S.
  American Rivers will work with the scientists to develop data sets that represent issues of greatest concern to policy makers and grass-roots groups. The science team will synthesize this information and draw general lessons concerning the links between the practice of restoration and the science of restoration ecology.
  American Rivers will incorporate the data and analysis into electronic form on its website, designed in an accessible format to accommodate searches and linkages with its other research and outreach tools, and ensure that the project's findings are communicated to restoration practitioners and policymakers across the country.
  American Rivers will also enable managers, river groups, scientists and other interested parties to add new restoration projects to the database, ensuring that it will be a growing resource center for restoration practitioners in the future.
  
  
• NRRSS Functions and Information
  NRRSS Database Schema
  (with MS Access 2000 download)
  Listing of NRRSS Node Managers and Users
  NRRSS Statistics for all Node Areas
  NRRSS Poster
  
  
• Additional Sites related to NRRSS
  
  RestoringRivers.org
  American Rivers

The national effort is being coordinated by Margaret Palmer at the University of Maryland, Emily Bernhardt at Duke University, Dave Allan at the University of Michigan, and Katherine Ransel (Seattle) and Margaret Bowman (D.C.) of American Rivers.

NRRSS Public Area

• View/Print NRRSS Records
• Export NRRSS Records