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Science 29 April 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5722, pp. 636 - 637
DOI: 10.1126/science.1109769
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Policy Forum

ECOLOGY:
Synthesizing U.S. River Restoration Efforts

E. S. Bernhardt,1*dag M. A. Palmer,1 J. D. Allan,2 G. Alexander,2 K. Barnas,3 S. Brooks,4 J. Carr,5 S. Clayton,6 C. Dahm,7 J. Follstad-Shah,7 D. Galat,8,9 S. Gloss,10 P. Goodwin,6 D. Hart,5 B. Hassett,1 R. Jenkinson,11 S. Katz,3 G. M. Kondolf,12 P. S. Lake,4 R. Lave,12 J. L. Meyer,13 T. K. O'Donnell,9 L. Pagano,12 B. Powell,14 E. Sudduth13

The authors of this Policy Forum developed a comprehensive database of >37,000 river restoration projects across the United States. Such projects have increased exponentially over the past decade with more than a billion dollars spent annually since 1990. Most are intended to enhance water quality, manage riparian zones, improve in-stream habitat, allow fish passage, and stabilize stream banks. Only 10% of project records document any form of project monitoring, and little if any of this information is either appropriate or available for assessing the ecological effectiveness of restoration activities.

1University of Maryland, College Park, MD; 2School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; 3Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC), National Oceanographic and Space Administration (NOAA), Seattle, WA, USA. 4Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia. 5Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA; 6University of Idaho, Boise, ID; 7University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM; 8U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Cooperative Research Units, Columbia, MO; 9University of Missouri, Columbia, MO; 10Southwest Biological Science Center, USGS, Tucson, AZ; 11University of Idaho, Moscow, ID; 12University of California, Berkeley, CA; 13University of Georgia, Athens, GA; 14Center for Biological Informatics, USGS, Denver, CO, USA. Complete addresses are available online.

*Present address: Duke University, Durham, NC, USA. dagAuthor for correspondence. E-mail: emily. bernhardt{at}duke.edu

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