what is low-tech process based restoration?

Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration is a way to maximize restoration efforts by initiating self-sustaining recovery of degraded rivercapes and impacting rivers at meaningful scales.   Structural starvation of wood and beaver dams in riverscapes is one of the most common impairments affecting riverscape health.  We helped to pioneer the use of low-tech structures, namely beaver dam analogues (BDAs) and post-assisted log structures (PALS) to initiate these processes and use stream power to initiate recovery.

riverscape principles

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1. streams need space.

Healthy streams are dynamic, regularly shifting position within their valley bottom, re-working and interacting with their floodplain. Allowing streams to adjust within their valley bottom is essential for maintaining functioning riverscapes.  

2. Structure forces complexity &
     Builds resilience

Structural elements, such as beaver dams and large woody debris, force changes in flow patterns that produce physically diverse habitats. Physically diverse habitats are more resilient to disturbances than simplified, homogeneous habitats.    

3. The importance of structure varies.

The relative importance and abundance of structural elements varies based on reach type, valley setting, flow regime and watershed context. Recognizing what type of stream you are dealing with (i.e., what other streams it is similar to) helps develop realistic expectations about what that stream should or could look (form) and behave (process) like. 

4.  Inefficient conveyance of water
​      is often healthy.

Hydrologic inefficiency is the hallmark of a healthy system. More diverse residence times for water can attenuate potentially damaging floods, fill up valley bottom sponges, and slowly release that water later elevating baseflow and producing critical ecosystem services. 

restoration principles

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5. It’s okay to be messy.

 When structure is added back to streams, it is meant to mimic and promote the processes of wood accumulation and beaver dam activity. Structures are fed to the system like a meal and should resemble natural structures (log jams, beaver dams, fallen trees) in naturally ‘messy’ systems. Structures do not have to be perfectly built to yield desirable outcomes. Focus less on the form and more on the processes the structures will promote.    

6. There is strength in numbers.

 A large number of smaller structures working in concert with each other can achieve much more than a few isolated, over-built, highly-secured structures. Using a lot of smaller structures provides redundancy and reduces the importance of any one structure. It generally takes many structures, designed in a complex to promote the processes of wood accumulation and beaver dam activity that lead to the desired outcomes. 

7. Use natural building materials.

Natural materials should be used because structures are simply intended to initiate process recovery and go away over time.  Locally sourced materials are preferable because they simplify logistics and keep costs down. 

8. Let the system do the work. 

Giving the riverscape and/or beaver the tools (structure) to promote natural processes to heal itself with stream power and ecosystem engineering, as opposed to diesel power, promotes efficiency that allows restoration to scale to the scope of degradation.  

9. Defer decision making to the system. ​

Wherever possible, let the system make critical design decisions by simply providing the tools and space it needs to adjust. Deferring decision making to the system downplays the significance of uncertainty due to limited knowledge. For example, choosing a floodplain elevation to grade to based on limited hydrology information can be a complex and uncertain endeavor, but deferring to the hydrology of that system to build its own floodplain grade reduces the importance of uncertainty due to limited knowledge.

10. Self-sustaining systems are
​        the solution.

 Low-tech restoration actions in and of themselves are not the solution. Rather they are just intended to initiate processes and nudge the system towards the ultimate goal of building a resilient, self-sustaining riverscape.