MEES698Y  Foundations of Stream Restoration                                                                     
Spring 2010   Fridays, 9:00 – noon                        
 Plant Science Room 1125 and over IVN

Class credit: 3 hours; Grading = mid-term, final, research briefs. 
  
Purpose: This course presents the ecological and geomorphologic foundations of stream restoration, emphasizing the theory and concepts that underlie the practice of restoration.  Topics will include in-depth coverage of hydrologic, geomorphic, and particularly ecological aspects of restoration with the basic foundational principles for stream ecosystem dynamics provided.  The course is designed for students interested in restoration, conservation, ecological theory, watershed science, or most fields of environmental science. 

Stream restoration is viewed in the context of whole watersheds emphasizing that interventions within or on stream channels are only one of many approaches to rehabilitate degraded streams and rivers.  As such, lectures and field trips cover: 

• Trends in the current practice of stream restoration
• Watershed context & drainage networks – hydrological, geomorphic, & ecological   contexts
• River behavior & channel change
• Threshold & alluvial channels
• Sediment transport & geomorphology
• Stream Ecosystem function & its controls
• Biodiversity and its controls in a restoration context
• Restoration for Mitigation – policy and research issue

SHORT COURSE:
ECOLOGICAL AND GEOMORPHIC PRINCIPLES OF STREAM RESTORATION
2010 date to be announced

Course contributors: Margaret Palmer, USM; Jack Schmidt, USU; Peter Wilcock, JHU; Sean Smith, MDNR

The course consists of organized lectures, backed by lecture notes, spreadsheets, readings, field trips, exercises, and discussion. The course includes daily field exercises at streams in the Baltimore region, including streams with recent or on-going restoration projects. Participants will collect field data using a variety of techniques, analyze the data, reach conclusions, and propose management recommendations based on the results.
Course topics:
• Essential channel hydraulics; stream gauging, & flow records
• Sampling river bed material and sediment transport
• Sediment transport mechanisms, estimating transport rate
• Controls on stream ecosystem structure and function
• Assessing and restoring habitat and biotic diversity
• Measuring key ecological processes (e.g., nutrient uptake)
• Flow/channel dynamics & habitat, geomorphic-ecological linkages
• Channel form and process, effects of land-use change
• Physical & biological approaches to restoration design
• Incorporating uncertainty in restoration design
• Incorporating aquatic & riparian ecosystem needs into design
• Learning from restoration projects, adaptive management

MEES 698E Special Topics in MEES: Principles & Practices of Ecosystem Restoration

[3 credits] Tuesdays, College Park, 3:30-6:30pm

Course will be taught by Dr. Sujay Kaushal (UMCES/CBL) this Fall 2009 at University of Maryland College Park and broadcast via Interactive Video Network (IVN) system. Course is open to all interested students.

*_Course Description:_*

Overview of critical ecosystem functions across biomes, and general considerations and tradeoffs in restoration designs for enhancing function and biotic communities. Specific cases studies and discussions will be aimed at understanding how structure can influence biophysical and biogeochemical processes supporting ecosystems and communities, and then describes how rates, timing, and location of physical, chemical, and ecosystem processes can be altered by different restoration strategies to enhance ecosystem services and improve habitat quality. Through quantitative examination of current "real world" applications and evaluation of alternatives, this course will examine both how and when structure and function can be considered in the Principles and Practices of Ecosystem Restoration.

*_Topics covered_: *

The initial overview lectures will illustrate how key processes across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments can present challenges to restoration across these biomes. Later, we will discuss specific case studies regarding restoration strategies across ecosystem such as forests, streams, wetlands, coastal ecosystems, etc. in addition to fundamental principles and tradeoffs in optimizing various ecosystem functions (e.g. strategies to increase habitat extent and quality and food web structure for protecting target species, nitrogen and phosphorus retention, sequestration of carbon, bioremediation of organic contaminants and heavy metals, buffering acidity, etc.). All topics will be discussed with an emphasis on how basic underlying principles in ecosystem ecology can be used in restoration science to solve contemporary and emerging problems in the environment.