About the Class and Symposium
Restoration of Rivers and Streams (LA 227)
Taught since 1992 (the longest-running course devoted to river restoration at a major research university), this course emphasizes understanding of underlying goals and assumptions of restoration and integration of science into restoration planning and design. Students review restoration plans and evaluate completed projects. In addition to lectures and discussions by the instructor, students, and an extraordinary set of guest lecturers drawn from the active restoration community, the principal course requirement is an independent term project involving original research and a presentation at this Symposium. The term projects are peer-reviewed, revised, and ultimately added to the permanent, web-searchable collection of the UC Water Resources Center Archives. Restoration of Rivers and Streams is taught by Professor Matt Kondolf. Paul Atwood (Water Resources Center Archives) developed the website and on-line access to class research papers.

Cover Image
Channel restoration, off-channel habitat creation and floodplain reconnection project on Johnson Creek, Portland, Oregon. The property was acquired through a "Willing Sellers" program to purchase flood-prone lands. The channel had been straightened in the 1930s. It was re-meandered, off-channel habitat features excavated, and large wood placed in the channel. (Photo by J. Corsale)

8h30  Keynote: Restoring urban streams in the Pacific Northwest: lessons learned
       Clayton Anderson (FWR Ecoresource Consultants, Vancouver BC, and Portland State Univ)

9h  Restoration strategies for Cerrito Creek in Blake Garden, Kensington, California
       Kristen Podolak, Jessica Ludy

9h20  Grocery shopping by the stream: connecting Whole Foods to Codornices Creek
       Matt Crampton, John Martin

9h40  Daylighting urban creeks: lessons learned and prospects for Yosemite Ck, San Francisco
       Brooke Ray Smith

9h55  Macroinvertebrate assemblages along Milliken Creek, Napa, in relation to land-use: implications for restoration planning
       Kaua Fraiola

10h10  Post-project appraisals of constructed vernal pools in Solano County
       Maya Baraona, Teresa Ippolito, Wendy Renz

10h30  Coffee Break

11h  Evolution of a compound channel: Tassajara Creek, Dublin, California
       Nate Butler, Lindsey Nolan

11h20  Performance of structures in channel restoration, Wildcat and Uvas Creeks
       Romain Maendly, Christine Poindexter, Dave Ball

11h40  Evaluation of physical complexity around vortex rock weirs
       Emily Corwin, Leigh Neary, Katie Jagt

12h  Panel discussion on emerging issues in river restoration.
       John Stella (Asst Prof, SUNY Syracuse), Phil Stevens (President, Urban Creeks Council), Janet Sowers (Wm Lettis & Associates, Oakland), Tom Kendall (Chief of Planning, US Army Corps, San Francisco District), and Kevin Knuuti (Chief of Engineering, US Army Corps of Engineers Sacramento District)

Clayton Anderson
FWR Ecoresource Consultants, Vancouver BC, and Portland State University
Clayton Anderson began working on stream restoration projects in 1981 and on urban streams in 1991. Since then he has worked on, designed, constructed and managed hundreds of stream restoration projects throughout the urban area of Vancouver, BC, and elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest. He is a principal instructor on the multi-semester program in stream restoration at Portland State University.

Tom Kendall
Chief of Planning, US Army Corps, San Francisco District
Tom received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of California Berkeley. At the Corps, he has served as Chief of the Water Resources and Engineering branches as well as the Planning/Engineering Division. He is currently Chief of the Planning Branch. He is a past director of the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association and a registered civil engineer in California.

Janet Sowers
William Lettis & Associates, Oakland
Janet is a geologist with the earth sciences consulting firm William Lettis & Associates, Inc. in Walnut Creek. As a doctoral student in the Department of Geology & Geophysics at U. C. Berkeley, she and Matt Kondolf took Luna Leopold's seminar class together. Dr. Sowers’ work includes making maps of creeks and watersheds in the Bay Area. A popular series published by the Oakland Museum, fourteen maps are now in print and a fifteenth map is in progress. Other types of work include Quaternary geology, soil stratigraphy, and paleoseismology. She lives in El Cerrito with her husband and two daughters.

John Stella
Assistant Professor, Department of Forest and Natural Resource Management, SUNY Syracuse
John is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Forest and Natural Resources Management at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. His research focuses on the linkages between, and restoration of physical and biological processes in watersheds, in particular the effects of river flow regimes on riparian (streambank) communities in Mediterranean and other aridland ecosystems. Current projects include ecological studies to restore riparian forest along the Sacramento River, CA, modeling effects of environmental flows and floodplain revegetation in the San Joaquin Basin, and ecology of riparian zones and wetland woods in Portugal. He teaches courses in Watershed Ecology and Management, and Weather, Climate and Global Change.

Phil Stevens
Executive Director, Urban Creeks Council
Phil is executive director of the Urban Creeks Council, a twenty-five year old Berkeley-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting and restoring the Bay Area's creeks. Prior to joining UCC he spent seven years with The Nature Conservancy's California and Alaska chapters. In previous lives he has taught high school, restored old cars, and managed a variety of struggling organizations, some of which survived the ordeal. He holds a master's degree in education from Columbia University and a bachelor's in ultimate frisbee from Williams College, and lives in Berkeley with his wife and two sons.

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Keynote: Restoring Pacific Northwest Streams -- The Urban Experience
Clayton Anderson, FWR Ecoresource Consultants, Vancouver BC, and Portland State University

Urban stream restoration in the Pacific Northwest is unique in hosting extraordinary runs of anadromous salmonids within rapidly-growing urban areas containing many and diverse streams. The high values on stream ecosystems and numerous opportunities for restoration brought about by rapid and relatively recent development has led to the Pacific Northwest becoming a world leader in stream ecosystem and restoration research and experimentation. Stream protection and restoration is now expected and demanded by the public in the Pacific Northwest. Having the local science and expertise and the high values on streams (leading to available money and willingness to restore) allows for successful, interesting and often innovative solutions in urban stream restoration in BC, Washington, and Oregon.

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Restoration strategies for Cerrito Creek in Blake Garden, Kensington, California
Jessica Ludy - jludy@berkeley.edu
Kristen Podolak - kpodolak@berkeley.edu

This investigation focuses on potential improvements to the Blake Garden section of Cerrito Creek for both ecological and social reasons. Cerrito Creek, which runs from Kensington down the East Bay Hills to San Francisco Bay, is highly urbanized. Multiple visits to the creek, interviews, and an assessment of existing conditions highlighted issues of concern: 1) the bank has been recently cleared of all vegetation which has left it barren and susceptible to erosion 2) there is incision along the creek near the greenhouse, 3) the creek bed and right bank are armored with concrete upstream of the greenhouse. Based on our assessment, we developed a creek restoration plan, which calls for jute netting and stream-bank plantings to stabilize bare banks, construction of step pools to reduce energy and provide an aesthetic water feature, and installing rain and stream gauges. Potential longer-term measures include: geotextile reinforcement of steep banks, regrading some steep banks to improve access and safety, creating a creek trail, removing concrete (substituting alternative stabilization measures), and onsite reduction in stormwater runoff.

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Grocery shopping by the stream: connecting Whole Foods to Codornices Creek
Matt Crampton - mcrampton@berkeley.edu
John Martin - jwm@berkeley.edu

Opportunities to design open space around urban creeks are uncommon due to the constraints of urban infrastructure. When space becomes available, new designs have the chance to treat the creek as an amenity for communities. One such opportunity is the new development possibilities occasioned by removal of World War II-era housing along Codornices Creek, within the married student housing complex known as ‘UC Village’ in Albany, California. The site, along San Pablo Avenue adjacent to Codornices Creek, is owned by the University of California at Berkeley. The proposed design called for a Whole Foods Market and parking structure. It, however, suggested building a two-story garage up to the fence line and did not create a meaningful connection between the Whole Foods Market and Codornices Creek. If built, the community will lose a rare opportunity to have open space near the creek. Our redesign focuses on the creek and the possible experiences that revolve around it. By relocating the Whole Foods Market and parking structure, it is possible to create an outdoor food court that overlooks the creek and that also accommodates the 100-year floodplain. The provision of personal space attracts users down toward the creek while the installation of step pools at the San Pablo culvert allow for steelhead trout to migrate upstream. The removal of the culvert at 10th Street reduces the risk of flooding and the redesign of two nodes encourages walkability of the new development.

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Daylighting urban creeks: lessons learned and prospects for Yosemite Ck, San Francisco
Brooke Ray Smith - brookray@berkeley.edu

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Macroinvertebrate assemblages along Milliken Creek, Napa, in relation to land-use: implications for restoration planning
Kaua Fraiola - kfraiola@nature.berkeley.edu

(Advance abstract unavailable.)

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Post-project appraisals of constructed vernal pools in Solano County
Maya Baraona - mayavida@berkeley.edu
Teresa Ippolito - tippolito@berkeley.edu
Wendy Renz - wrenz@nature.berkeley.edu

(Advance abstract unavailable.)

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Evolution of a compound channel: Tassajara Creek, Dublin, California
Nate Butler - butler@berkeley.edu
Lindsey Nolan - linznol@berkeley.edu

Incision of Tassajara Creek (Dublin, CA) induced continued channel instability and caused disconnection of the channel from the floodplain. During the 1990s, plans were made to restore Tassajara Creek and provide flood control by creating a compound channel. In addition to drainage, the restoration plan’s secondary goals were to increase vegetation, riparian habitat, and public access. A one mile reach of Tassajara Creek was reconstructed in 1999 and a series of post project appraisals have been conducted since establishing a series of cross sections as part of a long term monitoring plan. A hydraulic analysis performed in 2006 showed the flood corridor would be capable of conveying the 100-year flood and provided a back calculation of the Manning’s roughness coefficients. We aimed to continue monitoring the channel evolution by resurveying three of the established cross sections and a partial long profile, making qualitative observations, and comparison to previous data sets. We found instances of local incision as well as evidence of deposition, aggradation, and erosion throughout the project reach. We concluded from the data that the channel is still actively evolving. The secondary goals were well achieved with a significant increase in the amount of vegetation and habitat with a healthy population of macro-invertebrates.

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Performance of structures in channel restoration, Wildcat and Uvas Creeks
Romain Maendly - rom_maendly@berkeley.edu
Christine Poindexter - cpoindexter@berkeley.edu
Dave Ball - dball@berkeley.edu

(Advance abstract unavailable.)

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Evaluation of physical complexity around vortex rock weirs
Emily Corwin - ecorwin@berkeley.edu
Leigh Neary - leighneary@berkeley.edu
Katie Jagt - katiejagt@berkeley.edu

An increasing number of stream restoration projects include structures such as vortex rock weirs to provide grade control. These structures are becoming a preferred option because of the perceived benefits of physical creek stability with the secondary benefit of habitat enhancement. Due to the monetary investment in these restoration strategies, it is essential to evaluate the contributions these structures make in rivers both in terms of stability and habitat. This study adopts existing methods for evaluating vortex rock weir stability and develops a new method for examining potential habitat based on the assumption that physical complexity is often a strong indicator of suitable habitat. These methods for assessing weir stability, physical complexity, and potential habitat were successfully implemented at the Penitencia Creek and Wildcat Creek restoration sites in an attempt to correlate weir stability with physical complexity. This study’s results mimic results in the literature that find vortex rock weirs fail structurally after ten years in operation. In addition, variance for each of the physical parameters was calculated and compared to a trapezoidal control channel; the results of this analysis indicate that as weirs begin to fail, physical complexity decreases, and the presence of complexity within the system becomes increasingly unpredictable. In evaluating the methods, we find the criteria for assessing vortex rock weir structural integrity is straightforward and simple, while the complexity measurements are demanding and time intensive. Despite this, coupling the weir stability criteria with the physical complexity methodology provides a powerful tool to assess the physical stream response to vortex rock weirs and other in-stream structures.

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Final papers for this course and for the course, Hydrology for Planners, can be found at the Water Resources Center Archives and online at http://repositories.cdlib.org/wrca.