Dr. Phil Roni and Dr. Stan Gregory were interviewed during the REFORM Final Conference and shared their views on river restoration in the US and Europe, on the importance of monitoring and the strengths of the REFORM project.

Dr. Philip Roni has 25 years experience as a fisheries scientist and leads the Watershed Program at the NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center in the US, where he directs the research of more than 20 scientists conducting habitat research. At the REFORM Final Conference, Dr. Roni gave a keynote speech on “Key considerations for measuring river restoration success: Lessons from Western North America”.

Dr. Stan Gregory is an Emeritus Professor and Distinguished Professor of Fisheries in the Department of Fisheries & Wildlife at Oregon State University. He has studied streams, rivers, and lakes in the Pacific Northwest, and has been leading studies of the Willamette River for the last 20 years.  At the REFORM Final Conference, he gave a keynote speech on “Anticipating future trajectories of floodplain rivers and human systems in river restoration.

In your opinion, what are the good elements about river restoration in Europe and in the US? How do the two continents compare to one another?

Stan: Overall, I think similarities between the two continents outnumber the differences. Our similarities in restoration approaches stem from the fundamental principles of hydrology, geomorphology and ecology, which are consistent between North America and Europe. The key concepts bind us together in a common framework; when advances are made in Europe which are based on those fundamental principles, we can apply them (or decide on the degree to which they can be applied) on our systems and vice-versa.

Over the last 20 years, there has been increasing interest and pressure in developing interdisciplinary approaches in northern Europe and in the US. We quickly learned that projects designed only by fish biologists were quite often weak, because they weren’t strong in the physical sciences; likewise we saw projects designed by engineers that were ecological nightmares. On both continents, we have acknowledged the importance of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches.

We also rediscovered some of the same kind of principles, such as the importance of conserving the healthy parts of our ecosystem. Sometimes we rush too quickly to restore and to put a bandage on a damaged part of the system, ignoring that we are losing a healthy part of the system. Sound landscaping and sound river management is a balance of conserving the healthy parts and restoring the damaged parts. That recognition is emerging on both continents.

The other aspect that is emerging on both continents is that people are part of rivers and landscapes and that we cannot restore river ecosystems separate from humans. Future hope lies in the commitment of the people who live along those rivers and are committed to keeping them healthy. So there is growing recognition of the importance of societies as an integral part of restoration and not something external to it.

If I could point to some differences, I would say that Europe is doing particularly well, in terms of the common context and structure provided by the European Union and the Water Framework Directive. As a result of EU funding for environmental research, I see wonderful collaborations between different countries and different cultures. It is fascinating to observe cultural influence on the way we view approaches for restoration. There is a certain degree of consistency, but at the same time I can see a different focus of restoration in the Netherlands, different approaches in Germany or France and a different spin in countries like Italy.

In addition, the development of information and data collectively and under a common framework in the EU right now is impressive, e.g. data on types of rivers, geomorphology, hydrology, water quality, pollutants, barriers, dams, fish communities and macro-invertebrates. This is a strength that I don’t see anywhere else in the world. The requirements for research projects like REFORM, to include a certain minimum number of EU countries and in the same time work with advisory boards with representatives from other continents is an extremely strong approach. In a way, I am quite envious of the integration, cultural and disciplinary diversity in EU projects!

In North America, one of the good aspects is the growth in interdisciplinary research which got an earlier and stronger start than in Europe. It is happening not because of a requirement but in a more inherent way, because we see the value in having multiple disciplines involved. Also some of the best reviews and early synthesis of information related to restoration came from the US. One of the things found in early synthesis work was that quite often we did not identify goals and objectives, and there was no guiding vision of restoration. I now see REFORM and other EU projects taking this earlier work to the next level. Another strength in the US, especially in terms of conservation and landscape level ecology, is the long term ecological program of the National Science Foundation with sites both in the US and around the world (including the Antarctica). These sites serve as an earth system observatory for a long period of time to support the development of long term ecological research.

Phil: It is hard to point out what is better in the US versus Europe. There are similar challenges to river restoration, and there are similar success stories in both places.

In the US, we have the general approach of giving funding to local groups to do restoration. The argument behind this grassroots approach is that the people that live in the catchments should know best. The problem with that is that local groups often do not have the larger perspective of the specific catchment or basin. Restoration tends to be very opportunistic, as local groups are constrained largely by what they can do quickly and who is going to go along with it (in terms of cooperation with land owners and local organizations). Local groups often start with a demonstration project with one land owner on board who is willing to cooperate and others follow later on, if they are convinced to join. And so it may take 10 to 15 years to get some of the really high priority projects realized and this is not because of technical obstacles. It is about education and building trust.

In addition, in the US, it is difficult to concentrate restoration efforts because there is the political tendency to spread funding across a region in many different watersheds. We call this the peanut butter approach, i.e. we get a little bit everywhere, instead of concentrating efforts in a few key watersheds. In my opinion, if we put a lot of effort for ten years into one place (watershed or sub-catcment), we could really make a big difference in terms of recovering a watershed or an endangered population of salmon or other fish. When you have a catchment of 500km of stream, and you restore 2 km, it is not enough to make a difference. It might make a difference in those 2 km, but you need to do much more to have a large response in the whole watershed, e.g. for a whole population of migratory fish, like salmon or eel.

In comparative terms, in Europe, you are much ahead of us when it comes to floodplain restoration, you’ve been re-meandering and pulling back levies for decades, because of the large amount of lowland rivers and floodplains that you have. We have spent a lot more time on smaller streams and headwater streams, because we have so a lot of public land mainly in mountainous areas. That has changed now and we are also working more on larger rivers.

Further, the WFD in Europe is a very strong tool and probably the most comprehensive legislation in the world for habitat protection. We are still struggling in that respect. The big drivers in the US are the Clean Water Act, which was passed in the early 70s and the Endangered Species Act (also in the early 1970s). The Clean Water Act looks at water quality and is primarily driven by temperature, pollutants, dissolved oxygen and sediment, but it does not include the biological components. A final point is that river restoration objectives in Europe try to integrate more people’s expectations, while in the US, we tend to try to restore rivers to pre-European conditions because of the availability of large areas of public lands, shorter history of human impacts, and availability of relatively pristine areas to serve as a target.

Photo: Placed logs in a stream to help restore in-channel habitat and reconnect floodplain wetlands in Washington State (photographer: Phil Roni)

Phil, in your keynote speech, you emphasized the importance of monitoring for successful restoration. How can we ensure that monitoring is done in a more efficient way?

Phil: In the US, the tendency has been to give funding to local groups to do the monitoring. The problem with this is that many local groups are very good at doing restoration, but not so good at doing the monitoring. It is done as an add-on, and over the years, a lot of money is spent on monitoring, but it does not really add up to much, because it is not well thought out.We have watershed councils and each one of those often does a different type of monitoring and uses different protocols. There is also not a lot of incentive for them to complete the monitoring and publish the results.

According to my experience, monitoring is better done by a third party that works together with the local groups. A third party can be a university, agency, or private consulting company. Sometimes private companies are more efficient at it, because they are more interested in doing what is defined in their contract. Universities often add their own research agenda on top of the monitoring and the monitoring programme can drifts away from its original objective (though this can happen with private companies as well!). The advantage of having a third party in charge of monitoring is also that it ensures monitoring gets the right priority and is done in a consistent way, especially in terms of having all data in a database that can be accessed by different groups later on.

Stan, on another note, could you give us your opinion on the key contribution of the REFORM project to river restoration science and practice?

Stan: REFORM exhibits very well the strength of EU programs in terms of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural comparisons. It is also very strong in developing guidelines for measurement approaches as well as conceptual frameworks for looking at hydrology, geomorphology, vegetation and aquatic biological communities. As we project our guiding vision into the future when implementing restoration projects, there is always a very fundamental uncertainty: Will restoration be effective and are we doing the right things? The strength of the REFORM work is in clearly stating the fundamental concepts, the framework and the guidelines for measurements, to give people guidance and understanding why restoration might be succeeding or failing and how restoration can be improved.

Another advantage of REFORM’s fundamental concepts clearly laid out in its framework is that this will provide a foundation for scientists to take the next steps beyond REFORM towards an even better approach for river restoration. The real question will be how much we will see people using the products of REFORM as a springboard, twisting them and creating something new in the next 5 to10 years.

As a final note, it is a challenge for REFORM to be able to release its concepts and results in a form that also decision makers, practitioners, the informed public and community groups can understand. However, I believe that REFORM has thought about this as well as including education as part of the project.

Phil Roni and Stan Gregory were interviewed on 30 June 2015 by Eleftheria Kampa (Leader of Dissemination and Stakeholder Involvement of REFORM, Ecologic Institute) at the REFORM Final Conference in Wageningen.

Introduction

River restoration projects make use of scarce public funds, and two important policy questions therefore are: (1) how to select between alternative plans for river restoration based on their cost-effectiveness and (2) how to convince policymakers and the public that river restoration provides value for money? Economists have developed methods and tools that aim to inform on the societal costs and benefits of public investment projects such as river restoration. The first question can be answered with the help of a cost-effectiveness analysis, while the second question is answered with the help of a cost-benefit analysis (CBA). However, despite the existence of many manuals on the calculation of costs and benefits of water related projects, no specific guidance exists related to river restoration. There is also not much experience across Europe with social cost-benefit analysis in this particular area. To this end, REFORM researchers developed a guidance document (D5.2) on ‘Cost-effective restoration measures that promote wider ecosystem and societal benefits’, targeted at practitioners, that takes account of the specific characteristics of the costs and benefits of river restoration.

Key methodological issues in the estimation of river restoration costs and benefits

The guiding principle underlying a CBA to inform policy and decision-making is rather simple, namely that the net benefits (i.e. total benefits minus total costs) of a river restoration project should be positive. If not, the costs exceed the benefits and it would hence not be beneficial to carry out the project. To get to a comparison of costs and benefits of river restoration projects, one has to go, however, through a number of important steps and sometimes make heroic assumptions, as outlined below:

Steps in cost-benefit analysis (Brouwer and Pearce, 2005):

1. Problem definition
2. Definition project and baseline scenario (‘with’ and ‘without’ situation)
3. Identification of exogenous developments
4. Estimation of investment costs and running costs
5. Identification of project impacts
6. Estimation and valuation of project impacts
7. Set-up cost-benefit balance sheet
8. Sensitivity and uncertainty analysis

One of the key methodological issues in carrying out a CBA for a river restoration project is found in the ex ante assessment of the causal link between the restoration measure, its  hydrological and ecological impacts, and the final effects on the delivery of ecosystem services and their economic valuation.

The question what the local ecosystem and wider societal benefits of river restoration are, as for example depicted in the picture below, is often not easily answered. This requires insight in the interaction between hydro-morphological and ecological processes on the one hand, and the identification of different beneficiaries of the river restoration project and the plurality of values they may hold for river restoration on the other hand. The broader societal value is often not just found in the recreational value of a restored river trajectory to local visitors, but may also be related to important indirect values such as reduced flood risks downstream or the value attached by people living outside the restored area to the mere fact that a river’s integrity is restored, maintained or kept intact. The latter is also referred to as so-called ‘non-use’ values by environmental economists.

The difficulty in measuring and quantifying such non-use values in monetary terms is much harder than the direct, tangible use benefits such as increasing fish catch rates (provisioning service), indirect use values such as a river’s improved nutrient or storm water retention capacity (regulating services), or its recreational use benefits (cultural service).

Figure 1: Restored river Chiese in Italy (Source: Panoramio.com)

Other challenges include in step 2 the definition of the baseline or reference scenario ‘what would happen with ecological quality and ecosystem services over time without the restoration measures’ or the assessment of the broader economic costs of changes in, for example, flow rates on commercial shipping or hydropower generation. The latter make up the so-called opportunity costs of river restoration, i.e. the benefits that will be foregone when restoring river stretches. Related to this, an important question in the context of the European Water Framework is when costs become disproportionate.

Costs of river restoration

Water policies are often evaluated primarily on the basis of their financial or budgetary costs. These are the financial means and monetary flows needed to carry out river restoration projects over a certain time period to pay for the labour, machinery, fuel and other material costs. These financial costs can generally be assessed relatively easily compared to the broader economic costs of river restoration, related for instance to shipping or hydropower. The deliverable addresses the important question what costs of river restoration projects should be accounted for and how should they be assessed? There exist various and partly overlapping classification and assessment schemes. The WFD embraces the concept of ‘full cost’ assessment that would include the above mentioned direct financial costs, the costs associated with damage to the water environment, associated costs caused to other users and the opportunity costs of water use.

In D5.2 a practical cost typology has been developed with an emphasis on the distinction between recurring and non-recurring costs in order to allow for insight into how costs develop over time. An example of non-recurring costs of river restoration is to carry out the restoration works at a single time, through "one-off" measures. A river restoration project may, however, also require significant future maintenance (recurring costs), which are often not budgeted for.

Estimating the  wider array of non-recurring and recurring costs and taking into account discount rates and depreciation forms the basis of a proper cost assessment. After the respective cost data have been gathered, they can inform a cost-effectiveness analysis to support the selection of the least cost-way to restore alternative river stretches or different rivers.

Benefits of river restoration

The calculation of all costs and benefits, including environmental effects, often also referred to as the broader social costs and benefits, is a more difficult task. Social CBA is a widely applied method for evaluating public policies, since government interventions are often related to the provision of public goods, having an impact on society as a whole. Such impacts should consequently be valued and evaluated from society’s perspective, not only from the perspective of the investor like a government or water authority. Restored or ‘natural’ river corridors typically have the potential to provide a wide range of ecosystem services. It is the wider social value attached to these ecosystem services that is often missing in information that aims to support river restoration policy and decision-making.

Many of these ecosystem service benefits related to restored rivers can only be estimated in monetary terms using non-market valuation techniques. Examples include the travel costs of recreational visitors to restored sites or the use of so-called stated preference methods where visitors and also non-visitors are asked in surveys for their hypothetical willingness to pay (WTP) for river restoration benefits. This WTP is used as an indicator of the economic ‘non-market’ value attached to the goods and services provided by restored river systems to society as a whole.

A limited number of such non-market valuation studies exists, which were summarized and synthesized in a structured way in a meta-analysis in the deliverable D5.2. Four groups of variables were identified that represent different determinants of the variation in the nonmarket values found in the literature, namely (i) the characteristics of the ecosystem services provided by river restoration, (ii) the characteristics of the river and the location where the restoration took place, (iii) the socio-economic characteristics of the population of ecosystem service beneficiaries, and (iv) the characteristics of the valuation methodology. The mean WTP value in these existing studies is €70 per household per year (in 2013 price levels), while the median value is just over half of this, namely €43 per household per year. This implies that a wide variation in the values is found in the existing literature. This is illustrated in Figure 2 at country level, where mean WTP varies from €11 for Korea to €118 for Scotland. The values demonstrate at the same time another important challenge in making costs and benefits comparable: contrary to the unit costs of river restoration measures, which are expressed per m, m² or m³, the associated unit values for the benefits are expressed in euros per household per year.

Figure 2: Mean willingness to pay (WTP) for river restoration found in the existing literature across countries ( Brouwer et al., 2015)

References
Brouwer and Pearce (2005). Cost-benefit analysis and water resources management. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK.

Brouwer et al. (2015). Cost-effective restoration measures that promote wider ecosystem and societal benefits. Deliverable D5.2 of the REFORM FP7 Project.

Authors

Roy Brouwer and Onno Kuik, Department of Environmental Economics, Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands

About "PhD research in REFORM"

In the newsletter items dedicated to PhD research in REFORM, PhD students introduce the topic and the initial results of their research.

Introduction

The distribution of aquatic macrophytes strongly depends on the physical conditions of the river. Macrophytes act as ecosystem engineers, influencing flow velocity, water depth, sediment scouring and sedimentation. Furthermore, they play a vital role for other biota in river ecosystems, providing food and shelter for many macroinvertebrates and fish. Yet, only few restoration projects involve post-project monitoring of aquatic macrophytes. Therefore, there is a lack of understanding how macrophytes respond to restoration measures over time, which is essential for restoration projects to sustainably meet their aims.

Objectives

The main goal of this research is to better understand the interactions between aquatic macrophytes and river hydromorphology with a focus on restoration. In this way, the work is meant to contribute to increase the effectiveness of river restoration. Moreover, different macrophyte management approaches will be investigated to enhance self-sustainability, increase river health and reduce maintenance costs.

Approach

An extensive literature study has been conducted to summarise the different aspects of the interactions mentioned above, especially in restored river reaches.

To promote the added value of post-project monitoring of macrophytes in restoration projects, an analysis of macrophyte responses to different kinds of restoration was performed. The study covered 20 restored river reaches across Europe. To avoid general conclusions being restricted to the dispersal area of certain species, the focus was set on growth forms.

Figure1: The lowland river Spree near Mönchwinkel, Brandenburg (Germany) (Photo: Jan Köhler)

Macrophytes displace water and increase roughness in the river, so cutting aquatic weeds lowers the water level and increases the discharge capacity. This practice is regularly performed in the German lowland river Spree as a flood prevention measure. Conducted in an extensive way, this measure constitutes a severe interference with the fragile ecosystem (see Figure 2).

In a field experiment, our aim is to detect changes in the food web via stable isotope analysis after removing the macrophytes. In this method, the ratios of stable carbon (¹³C/¹²C) and nitrogen (¹⁵N/¹⁴N) isotopes of organisms are determined. This allows for a clear distinction between the primary food sources (e.g. aquatic and terrestrial plants, epiphyton) because of their different isotopic signatures, which depend on the nutrient source. Heavier isotopes (¹³C and ¹⁵N) are processed more slowly than lighter ones during metabolism and therefore become enriched in the organism. As a consequence, ¹³C and ¹⁵N accumulate in the food chain and the isotopic signature can be used as a tracer for the position in the food web.

Figure 2: Staff of the local water management association removing mowed aquatic macrophytes from the river Spree, Brandenburg (photo: Jan Köhler).

Furthermore, we will quantify the limiting effects of shading by woody riparian vegetation on macrophyte growth. Aquatic vegetation mapping and light measurements in the river Spree will be conducted. Additionally, long-term data on the annual amount of macrophytes being removed from the river and on discharge being influenced by the cutting will be analysed. By combining these results with the insights gained on the shading effects of bank vegetation, we aim to demonstrate planting of riparian trees as the more environmentally sound option for macrophyte management in order to prevent floods.

Preliminary Results

So far, our review has covered 170 studies from across the world, in which we found quantitative data on the environmental requirements of 176 aquatic macrophyte species. Based on this compilation and further studies describing the influence of macrophytes on their environment, we were able to generally illustrate these interactions in an easily accessible way (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Outline of the interactions between aquatic macrophytes and river hydromorphology (figure: Sabine Scheunig).

Quantifying restoration effects, a higher species richness (about 92%) and a higher Shannon diversity (about 38%) of the helophyte community – emergent plants growing on the edge of water bodies where the water level fluctuates – were found in the restored reaches compared to adjacent degraded ones. This was observed especially in rivers where widening was carried out. The work also showed a correlation between these parameters and the improvement of hydromorphological variables. These results emphasise the suitability of helophytes as indicators for effective river restoration. In particular, they reflect the connectivity between the river bed and its adjacent area.

Stable isotope analysis for studying the food web in the river Spree is in its final stages. Field experiments to quantify shading impacts on macrophytes are underway.

Further links

REFORM Deliverable 1.3: Review on ecological response to hydromorphological degradation and restoration

REFORM Deliverable 4.3: Effects of large- and small-scale river restoration on hydromorphology and ecology

Author

Sabine Scheunig, IGB Berlin (Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries)