Stream Habitat Restoration Guidelines (WDFW)

The purpose of the Stream Habitat Restoration Guidelines (SHRG) is to promote process based natural stream restoration, rehabilitating aquatic and riparian ecosystems. These guidelines advance a watershed scale assessment of the stream system, establishing goals, objectives and design for restoring optimum sustainable native biodiversity, using principles of landscape ecology and integrated aquatic ecosystem restoration.

Integrated Streambank Protection Guidelines (WDFW) 

The Aquatic Habitat Guidelines collection was created by a consortium of public agencies to assist property owners, planners, designers and regulators protect and restore marine, freshwater and riparian fish and wildlife habitat. These guidelines provide “how to” guidance that, while scientific in approach, can be understood and used by volunteers, planners, designers and managers of aquatic restoration projects and facilities. (WA Department of Fish and Wildlife)

Native Shrubs and Trees for Riparian Areas in the Intermountain West

The Aquatic Habitat Guidelines collection was created by a consortium of public agencies to assist property owners, planners, designers and regulators protect and restore marine, freshwater and riparian fish and wildlife habitat. These guidelines provide “how to” guidance that, while scientific in approach, can be understood and used by volunteers, planners, designers and managers of aquatic restoration projects and facilities. (WA Department of Fish and Wildlife)

This literature review addresses the following issues: design and ecological considerations for new channels, habitat restoration and mitigation, channel relocation and realignment, channel modification for habitat and stability, placement of large woody debris (including removal and relocation), placement of boulders (including smaller rocks and substrate), off-channel ponds (rearing and other), off-channel channels (new floodplains, high flow by-pass), gradient control structures, habitat enhancement activities and structures.

A User Guide to Assessing Proper Functioning Condition and the Supporting Science for Lotic Areas

Proper functioning condition (PFC) is a qualitative method for assessing the condition of riparian-wetland areas. The term PFC is used to describe both the assessment process, and a defined, on the-ground condition of a riparian-wetland area. The PFC assessment refers to a consistent approach for considering hydrology, vegetation, and erosion/deposition (soils) attributes and processes to assess the condition of riparian-wetland areas. A checklist is used for the PFC assessment (Appendix A), which synthesizes information that is foundational to determining the overall health of a riparian-wetland system.

This document provides information on three sampling methods used to inventory and monitor the vegetation resources in riparian areas. The vegetation cross-section method evaluates the health of vegetation across the valley floor. The greenline method provides a measurement of the streamside vegetation. The woody species regeneration method measures the density and age class structure of any shrub or tree species that may be present in the sampling area. Together these three sampling procedures can provide an evaluation of the health of all the vegetation in a given riparian area.

An Introduction & Users Guide

An EPA guide for the public containing background on wetlands and restoration; information on project planning, implementation, and monitoring; and lists of resources, contacts, and funding sources.

An overview of wetland functions and Ecology’s role in protecting, restoring and managing wetlands, with many links to wetland resources on the left sidebar.

This EPA document provides background information on classifying wetlands, selecting criteria variables, designing monitoring programs, building a database analyzing nutrient and algal data, deriving regional criteria, and implementing management practices. The wetlands modules (at the bottom of the website) provide “state-of-the-science” information to help develop biological assessment methods to evaluate both the overall ecological condition of wetlands and nutrient enrichment (one of the primary stressors on many wetlands).

PowerPoint lectures that teach about stream morphology, hydrology, physical factors, organisms, ecosystem processes and more.