Ecological and Geomorphic Principles of Stream
Restoration
June 8th to June 12th
2008
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Instructors: |
Teaching Assistants |
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Margaret Palmer, UMCES-Chesapeake Biological Laboratory Peter Wilcock, Jack
Schmidt, Sean
Smith, |
Jake Hosen, University of Maryland-College Park
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This introductory course presents the ecological and geomorphologic foundations of stream restoration, emphasizing their application in restoration practice. The course focuses on understanding and measuring ecological and geomorphic processes and their application within an integrated approach to stream restoration. The course is designed for engineers, geologists, biologists, planners, land managers, landscape architects, and government officials who are involved with river and stream management and can benefit from a comprehensive understanding of how they work. The number of participants is limited to 22 students (and the class fills up early).
VENUE. Classes will be held in Cromwell Valley Park at the Sherwood House, an English manor style mansion built in 1935. Cromwell Valley Park is located in the scenic Maryland Piedmont immediately outside the Baltimore Beltway. The park centers on Minebank Run and includes pasture, cultivated gardens, hedgerows, orchards and wooded hills. A unique feature of the park is that 7,000 ft of Minebank Run are in the process of restoration. Extensive pre- and post-restoration monitoring is being conducted by the USGS, EPA, and Baltimore County DEPRM, providing an opportunity to develop
an in-depth understanding of stream restoration just outside the classroom door.
COURSE ORGANIZATION. 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. The participants will also analyze restoration projects in their geomorphic and ecological context. The course also includes workshops on geomorphic river restoration problems faced by participants, who will have the opportunity to briefly present the problem for discussion by instructors and colleagues in workshop format.
TOPICS. QUESTIONS?? If you have any questions regarding course logistics, including information on nearby hotels, please feel free to contact the teaching assistants, Owen McDonough (otmcdo@umd.edu).
Geomorphology
Channel forms and processes
River bed characterization
Channel response to human interventions and the effects of land use change
Hydraulics
Status and trends in river and stream restoration
Channel hydraulics
Stream gaging and measurement
Sediment transport mechanisms and transport rate estimation
Ecology
Controls on stream ecosystem structure and function
Assessing habitat and biotic diversity
Measuring key ecological processes (e.g., nutrient uptake)
Flow/channel dynamics & habitat
Role of riparian vegetation in channel and ecological dynamics
Stream Restoration and Management
Approaches to restoration design
Restoration design uncertainty analysis
Adaptive river management perspectives
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.
This course serves as a prerequisite for Geomorphology and Sediment Transport in Channel Design, a 5-day course taught at Utah State University. That course presents a more detailed quantitative treatment of sediment transport and applies geomorphology, sediment transport, and ecology in a channel design exercise. Click here for more details.
SCHEDULE. Schedule coming soon..