Process-Based Ecological River Restoration: Visualizing Three-Dimensional Connectivity and Dynamic Vectors to Recover Lost Linkages

Kondolf, G. Mathias; Boulton, Andrew J.; O'Daniel, S. J.; Poole, Geoffrey C.; Rahel, Frank J.; Stanley, Emily H.; Wohl, Ellen; Bång, Åsa; Carlström, Julia; Cristoni, Chiara; Huber, Harald; Koljonen, Saija; Louhi, Pauliina; Nakamura, Keigo

doi:10.5751/es-01747-110205

Cited by 317 publications

(222 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…For example, resilience of lake districts can be measured by the distance from the current state to thresholds of ecological or social change (Carpenter and Brock 2004). Many other papers use distance-to-threshold to investigate social-ecological systems (e.g., Kondolf et al 2006, Martin 2004, Peterson 2002, Sandker et al 2007, Walker and Meyers 2004. The second and third definitions are related to the autopoietic, or selfcreating, aspects of living systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive Capacity and Traps

Carpenter¹,

Brock²

2008

E&S

393

260

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ABSTRACT. Adaptive capacity is the ability of a living system, such as a social-ecological system, to adjust responses to changing internal demands and external drivers. Although adaptive capacity is a frequent topic of study in the resilience literature, there are few formal models. This paper introduces such a model and uses it to explore adaptive capacity by contrast with the opposite condition, or traps. In a socialecological rigidity trap, strong self-reinforcing controls prevent the flexibility needed for adaptation. In the model, too much control erodes adaptive capacity and thereby increases the risk of catastrophic breakdown. In a social-ecological poverty trap, loose connections prevent the mobilization of ideas and resources to solve problems. In the model, too little control impedes the focus needed for adaptation. Fluctuations of internal demand or external shocks generate pulses of adaptive capacity, which may gain traction and pull the system out of the poverty trap. The model suggests some general properties of traps in social-ecological systems. It is general and flexible, so it can be used as a building block in more specific and detailed models of adaptive capacity for a particular region.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive Capacity and Traps

Carpenter¹,

Brock²

2008

E&S

393

260

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“…We take the definition for habitat connectivity used in the terrestrial sense, where it is used to describe and measure the "spatial continuity of a habitat or cover type across a landscape" (Turner et al 2001: 3) and explore how it can be explicitly applied to measure longitudinal river network connectivity. Here, longitudinal connectivity refers to connections 110 between upstream and downstream sections of a river network, as opposed to vertical (benthic to pelagic) or lateral (bank to bank) connections (see Kondolf et al 2006). Our intent is that this metric will provide an analogous means of quantifying aquatic habitat connectivity asto the myriad of terrestrial landscape metrics, and will provide a useful indicator of aquatic ecosystem integrity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new measure of longitudinal connectivity for stream networks

Côté¹,

et al. 2008

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Habitat connectivity is a central factor in shaping aquatic biological communities, but few tools exist to describe and quantify this attribute at a network scale in riverine systems. Here, we develop a new index to quantify longitudinal connectivity of river networks based on the expected probability of an organism being able to move freely between two random points of the network.We apply this index to two fish life histories and evaluate the effects of the number, passability, and placement of barriers on river network connectivity through the use of simulated dendritic ecological networks. We then extend the index to a real world dendritic river system in Newfoundland, Canada.Our results indicate that connectivity in river systems, as represented by our index, is most impacted by the first few barriers added to the system. This is in contrast to terrestrial systems, which are more resilient to low levels of connectivity. The results show a curvilinear relationship between barrier passability and structural connectivity. This suggests that an incremental improvement in passability would result in a greater improvement to river network connectivity for more permeable barriers than for less permeable barriers. Our analysis of the index in simulated and real river networks also showed that barrier placement played an important role in connectivity.Not surprisingly, barriers located near the river mouth have the greatest impact on fish with diadromous life histories while those located near the center of the river network have the most impact on fish with potadromous life histories. The proposed index is conceptually simple and sufficiently flexible to deal with variations in river structure and biological communities. The index will enable researchers to account for connectivity in habitat studies and will also allow resource managers to characterize watersheds, assess cumulative impacts of multiple barriers and determine priorities for restoration.Response to Reviewers: July 21, 2008 To the Editor of Landscape Ecology, Thank you for your thorough review of our manuscript "A riverscape connectivity index" (LAND-08-1528R1). We have addressed each criticism and comment (see indented comments added to the LE decision letter below). In particular we have significantly shortened the introduction, replaced the simulated single channel system with that of a dendritic, added a conceptual cartoon and have Thank you for your submission to Landscape Ecology. Your paper has been recommended for publication with revisions. The reviews were all positive-each indicating that the connnectivity index is a valuable contribution to the aquatic landscape ecology literature. All of the reviewers suggest, and I concur that the manuscript is far too long, and thus, your major task in the revision will be to reduce the length substantially. The second issue, again raised by Reviewer # 1 is to address the issue of travel distance versus stream length. That reviewer presents a logical arguement that these two measures are no...

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“…Such process-oriented strategies reflect initiatives to make national and international river restoration efforts more holistic (Palmer and Allan 2006) and to better address primary causes of ecosystem degradation through restoration actions (Kondolf et al 2006;Roni et al 2008;Beechie et al 2010). Underlying these recommendations is a history of failed conventional policies that narrowly focused on the recreation of specific habitat characteristics to meet certain uniform habitat standards Newson and Large 2006).…”

Section: Process-orientated Versus Static Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%