Strawberry creek on the University of California, Berkeley campus: A case history of urban stream restoration

Abstract

ABSTRACT1 . Strawberry Creek (37'52'N; 122O15'W) is the major focus of open space on the University of California, Berkeley (Alameda County, California, USA) campus; it provides visual amenity and variety, riparian and wildlife habitat, and educational and recreational opportunities. 2.Since the beginning of this century, urbanization of the catchment, channel alteration and water quality degradation combined to cause deterioration of the creek's habitat and overall environmental quality; this was manifested by a marked absence of flora and fauna, obvious water pollution and severe erosion. 3.In 1987 a restoration project was undertaken that focused on water-pollution and erosioncontrol measures. In 1989, native three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) were successfully reintroduced. Family Biotic Index scores for the macroinvertebrate community indicated a change from the 'poor' water quality conditions in 1986 to 'good' water quality in 1991.4. Environmental education programmes now involve over 1500 students who use the creek each year in laboratory exercises; a popular natural history and conservation walking-tour guidebook has also been prepared. 5 . On-going restoration efforts include additional reintroductions of other native species, further environmental education efforts and monitoring.6. Obstacles and key factors that led to the successful implementation of this project are presented to assist in implementing similar ecological restoration projects of urban streams.

An assessment of structural attributes and ecosystem function in restored Virginia coalfield streams

“…The PCA results help clarify these points, as the most significant component (PC 1) had relatively similar loadings for all variables, implicating no one factor in the differentiation of site types here (Table 1). Multiple studies have concluded that restoration is a timedependent process, in which changes between site types may not be noticeable for decades (e.g., Charbonneau & Resh, 1992;Kondolf, 1995). Studies of ecosystem structural and functional restoration should focus on longer-term, repeated measures of both structure and function to track ecosystem resilience and recovery (Bonta, 2005;Palmer et al, 2005).…”

Evaluating stream restoration projects

“…Improvements in water quality in Strawberry Creek, on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, have been documented following a restoration program that identified and eliminated point sources of pollution, stabilized eroding banks, and increased public awareness of storm drains as a source of pollutants to the stream (Charbonneau and Resh 1992). The success of watershed-wide efforts can be monitored using long-term measurements of physical and chemical constituents such as: temperature; pH; concentrations of dissolved oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, herbicides, and insecticides; suspended and floating matter; odor; and opacity (MacDonald and others 1991, National Research Council 1992).…”

Downstream Effects of Urbanization on Stillwater Creek, Oklahoma

“…Because water runs faster over impervious surfaces, construction reduces the Downloaded by [West Virginia University] at 15:44 05 November 2014 lag time of surface runoff and increases debris production as well as flood peaks; this affects channel morphology in different ways, including alterations in channel cross-sections, types of bed materials, types of channel units, organic debris, and riparian vegetation (Orme and Bailey, 1971; Morisawa and Laflure, 1979;Nanson, 1981;Booth, 1990Booth, , 1991Johnson, 2001;Jeje and Ikeazota, 2002;May et al, 2002;Avolio, 2003;Brierley and Fryirs, 2005;Gurnell et al, 2007). Charbonneau and Resh (1992) noticed that impacts of urbanization lead to enhanced downcutting, stream bank erosion, and modification of the natural pool-riffle sequence. Such effects of urbanization, however, vary locally with the degree of imperviousness (urbanization) and are determined by basin and adjacent riparian conditions (Kang and Marston, 2006;Marston, 2006).…”