Saturday December 5th 2015, 9:00am-1:00pm
Wurster Hall Auditorium (Room 112), UC Berkeley
Contact: Matt Kondolf (kondolf.berkeley@gmail.com); Amir Gohar (amir.gohar@berkeley.edu)
The symposium begins with a keynote talk, ‘Urban stream restoration: Today channel, tomorrow the watershed’ by Jeff Haltiner, recently retired as a Senior Vice President of ESA-PWA, with four decades of experience designing stream and wetland restoration projects throughout California. Urban stream restoration has been at the heart of the movement to “bring nature back to the city”. Initial efforts focused on “naturalizing” short reaches of these highly degraded channels, while the current generation of projects looks to restore some channel dynamics. But new stormwater management regulations offer the opportunity to restore key watershed processes (flow regime, water-quality) to support our restored stream channels over the next century.
Dr Haltiner’s talk will be followed by presentations of graduate student research, and discussion by an interdisciplinary panel, including Carroll Blue (University of Houston), Michael Bowen (State Coastal Conservancy), and Gordon Becker (CEMAR).
Graduate student research topics in River Restoration include post-project appraisals of restoration projects on Alamo Creek and the Carmel River, and of dam removal on Branciforte Creek, taking grazing history and intensity into account in planning restoration projects, drawing lessons from the American and Sacramento rivers to inform river corridor planning in Latin America, and oxygen for Lake Merritt. The symposium is free and open to the public, but register in advance to have a program and coffee reserved for you.
To register, fill the form below:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tI7neCWSSx68Oln3BpqZQxeViCq0Bc9f3tKrUSnYTj4/viewform
PROGRAM SCHEDULE (subject to change)
8:30AM - Registration
9:00AM - Welcome and Introduction
9:15AM - Keynote
Urban stream restoration: Today the channel, tomorrow the watershed, Jeff Haltiner
10:00AM - Graduate Student Research
American and Sacramento river corridors: lessons learned applicable to river corridor planning in Latin America
Mariana Blondet, Tomas McKay
Three decades of changes in channel morphology: the Schulte Road restoration project, Carmel River
Steve Pye, Kazuki Terada, Zhone He
10:30AM - Coffee Break
11:00AM - Graduate Student Research (cont)
Post-project appraisal of floodplain connectivity and vegetation diversity of Alamo Creek restoration project
Gautem Sachdeva, Ari Frink, Rebecca Correa
Post-project appraisal of Branciforte Dam removal
Mariana Ricker
River restoration decisions: consideration of scale, grazing intensity, and geomorphic indicators
Lauren Wilson
Oxygen for Lake Merritt
Rania Odeh
12:00PM - Panel Discussion
Gordon Becker (CEMAR), Carroll Blue (University of Houston), Michael Bowen (California Coastal Conservancy), Jeff Haltiner (PWA-ESA), and Peter Vorster (Bay Institute)
SPEAKER AND PANELIST BIOS
Gordon Becker has worked with natural resources management issues for 20 years. His recent projects focus on various aspects of steelhead trout restoration including natural history, barrier mitigation, and instream flow needs. He received his M.S. in Water Resources Management from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is a Certified Fisheries Professional by the American Fisheries Society and a member of the Board of Directors of the Tuolumne River Trust.
Carroll Parrott Blue is an award-winning filmmaker, author, and interactive multimedia producer. She is a former University of Houston research professor and executive director of The Dawn Project, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Blue uses based media training, production, and distribution techniques for citizen engagement in neighborhood development. Blue has worked extensively in television. She is also an author, who blends text, stills, graphics, and moving images in traditional and new media formats. Her interactive multimedia project, The Dawn at My Back: Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing, was a combination book, DVD-ROM, and website. In 2004, the American Library Association selected Dawn as one of the 30 best American Association of University Press publications, and it won the 2004 Sundance Online Film Festival Jury Award. Other multimedia works include a bayouvoices.org website and a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Our Town awardee. Blue is a San Diego State University professor emerita and a retired University of Central Florida professor.
Michael Bowen works for the State Coastal Conservancy focusing on aquatic habitat enhancement and restoration projects. Current priorities include estuarine restoration projects in the Eel River Delta, and fish passage improvement projects throughout California’s coastal watersheds. Mr. Bowen is Chair of the Fish Passage Forum, an association of agencies and entities assisting with the de-fragmentation of aquatic habitat statewide. Previously Mr. Bowen helped launch the Low Impact Hydropower Institute, worked for the Energy Unit of the Coastal Commission, and California Trout.
Jeff Haltiner is a hydrologist and civil engineer with four decades of experience planning and designing stream restoration projects, conducting analyses of water shed processes and river channel and floodplain hydraulics, assessing flood hazard and ecosystem restoration on rivers, wetlands, lakes, estuaries and the coastline. His recent focus has been on multi-objective watershed management and the design of environmentally sensitive flood control and river management techniques. In conjunction with this, he has managed several hundred projects and authored a series of papers on urban stream management approaches that integrate physical, biological, and land-use planning elements. He received his PhD from Colorado State University.
Peter Vorster has 40 years of experience as a hydrogeographer, much of it focused on California's water resources and the landmark water conflicts in the Eastern Sierra (Mono Lake and the Owens Valley) and the San Francisco Bay-Delta watershed. He was a principal researcher on the California Water Atlas and a key player in the successful effort to restore Mono Lake and its streams. At The Bay Institute Peter heads up the San Joaquin River Restoration Initiative and is a principal for the Ecological and Water Management Scorecard projects. Currently he is a senior advisor to the California Water Foundation on their Sustainable Water Management Profile project.
ABSTRACTS
Keynote
Urban stream restoration: Today the Channel, Tomorrow the Watershed
Jeff Haltiner
Urban stream restoration has been at the heart of the movement to “bring nature back to the city”. Initial efforts focused on “naturalizing” short reaches of these highly degraded channels, while the current generation of projects looks to restore some channel dynamics. But new stormwater regulations offer the opportunity to restore key watershed processes (flow regime, water-quality) to support our restored stream channels over the next century.
Graduate Student Research
American and Sacramento river corridors: lessons learned applicable to river corridor planning in Latin America
Mariana Blondet & Tomas McKay
Cities on the Pacific coast of South America are set within a complex topography, with rivers that are still dynamic players in the landscape, often affecting vulnerable populations through flooding and erosion. To minimize conflicts between human settlements and river dynamics, we explored the application of the concepts of the “erodible corridor” and “environmental justice”, as applied in the EU and US. We studied two erodible corridors in the Sacramento Valley to compare and identify key concepts and regulations in river and ecosystem service management that may be applicable along the West Coast of the Americas, notably the Rímac and Maule rivers, in Peru and Chile respectively. We studied a 100-mile reach of the Sacramento River from Red Bluff to Colusa, and the Lower American River Parkway in Sacramento to identify scientific data needs and institutional arrangements that supported these corridors.
Three decades of changes in channel morphology: the Schulte Road restoration project, Carmel River
Stephen Pye
Multiple restoration projects on the Carmel River in Monterey County over three decades present excellent opportunities for post-project learning. One of the earliest projects was a channel reconstruction near Schulte Road, completed in 1988, and periodically surveyed since that time. Past monitoring in the Schulte reach provides a baseline for future monitoring. In November of 2015, we surveyed three cross sections, completed a thalweg profile extending 1000 ft upstream from Schulte bridge, conducted five pebble counts, and reproduced photographs taken at four separate times within the last 30 years. The river channel has changed substantially since it was reconstructed in 1988. By 1999, the channel had incised by six feet, a trend that continued through 2007. Since 2007, our results suggest that the active channel has aggraded by one to three feet.
Post-project appraisal of floodplain connectivity and vegetation diversity of Alamo Creek restoration project
Gautem Sachdeva, Ari Frink, Rebecca Correa
We conducted a post-project appraisal (PPA) on the Alamo Creek restoration project in San Ramon, CA, which was constructed in 2001. The 12,000’ long restoration project involved construction of step pools, rock armoring, native planting, and the creation of a 100-150-foot-wide to accommodate high flows, to discourage channel incision, and form a healthy riparian zone. We compared previous creek cross-sections to current cross- sections, determining that little incision has occurred since the project was built. The floodplain supports plant communities that rely on seasonal flooding. We also compared as-built planting diagrams to current planting regimes, determining that while the plants within 200’ of the channel are healthy, the sycamores and oaks 500’ and more from the channel are not.
Post-project appraisal of Branciforte Dam removal
Mariana Ricker
Branciforte Creek is a tributary to the larger San Lorenzo River, draining 10 mi2 in the Santa Cruz Mountains. In 2013, an abandoned dam was removed by the Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County to reestablish unimpeded sediment transport, restore the channel and instream habitat in the upstream reach and remove a barrier to Steelhead and Coho salmon migration to the 3.5- mi2 watershed upstream of the dam. This study focused on the 600-foot reach surrounding the dam and how it has adjusted over the last two years. I found that, even with limited number of high flows, there has been active sediment transport on the creek with considerable incision into the former sediment wedge upstream from the dam site. While not yet fully exhibiting an equilibrium condition, the stream has made considerable progress toward a more natural
River restoration decisions: consideration of scale, grazing intensity, and geomorphic indicators
Lauren Wilson
Rangelands make up 60% of California. To achieve conservation goals in these large areas, grazing management is a key, landscape-scale management tool. Overgrazing is frequently cited for its negative impacts to riparian systems. As with any highly complex ecosystem, processes are not straight forward, and published studies do not always agree. If land managers are convinced that grazing is negatively affecting riparian habitat and riverine processes, reducing grazing pressure generally and/or fencing off riparian zones are typical strategies that can be adopted. I documented stream bed and bank characteristics of three creeks in Tejon Ranch (Kern County), where grazing has been continuous for over 100 years, and Dry Creek (Yuba County), with adjacent grazed and ungrazed sections. I compared indicators of stream channel form across grazing intensities, and did not find significant differences between grazed and ungrazed reaches of Dry Creek, nor excessive erosion and incision of grazed creeks at Tejon Ranch. Results showed no correlation between grazing intensity and stream channel form. However, due to a low sample size, statistical test results are unlikely to be significant, even if means are different.
Oxygen for Lake Merritt
Rania Odeh
Lake Merritt at the heart of Oakland once represented the “beautiful city” movement, but now suffers from poor water quality. Originally a tidal marsh, construction of tidal gates and dams to control the water flow eliminated tidal circulation and led to a decline in wetland vegetation. The lack of tidal flushing led to high salinity, high water temperatures, and poor dissolved oxygen levels. Nutrients from sewage leaks and overflow, as well as animal wastes have resulted in phytoplankton blooms and low dissolved oxygen levels that may compromise aquatic species health. To improve the water quality in Lake Merritt, reducing high nutrient loads into the lake should be the main goal. Strategically placed rain gardens, oxygenating plant species and phytoremediation plant species could help reduce nutrient loads.