Restoration Research awardees, 090617
Request Year / Grant Amount / Organization / Project Title / Project Description / Primary Contact /2017 / $199,990 / South River Federation / Assessing Watershed-scale Restoration Effectiveness: Treatment Impacts and Monitoring Requirements / The South River Federation and Smithsonian Environmental Research Center will evaluate the cumulative performance of multiple Best Management Practices (BMPs) at a subwatershed scale. The research team will compare watershed-level discharges of sediment and nutrient pollutants from seven interconnected, restored subwatersheds of Church Creek. / Jennifer Carr
2017 / $200,000 / Center for Watershed Protection, Inc. / Using a Novel Research Framework to Assess Water Quality Impacts of Urban Trees / This research team will quantify the stormwater treatment value of trees across urban forest types. The project will identify urban forest characteristics that influence the water and ecosystems and determine whether more complex urban forest types result in greater runoff volume reduction.
/ Dr. Neely Law
2017 / $199,314 / University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) / Long-term impacts of living shorelines to Sub Aquatic Vegetation (SAV) habitats in the Chesapeake Bay / This project will assess the long-term performance of living shorelines, a practice of using natural shoreline habitat to prevent erosion rather than hard shoreline armor, as well as their potential impacts to adjacent seagrass beds. / Dr. Cindy Palinkas
2017 / $198,332 / University of Maryland College Park / Tree Trade-Offs in Stream Restoration Projects: Impact on Riparian Groundwater Quality / Predicting the impact of tree removal associated with stream restoration on riparian water quality remains a challenge. This project will quantify the effects of riparian deforestation on groundwater quality across urban restored, degraded, and forested reference sites. / Dr. Sujay Kaushal
2017 / $180,408 / Versar, Inc. / An Evaluation of Forest Impacts as Compared to Benefits Associated with Stream Restoration / The goal of this project is to better understand the impacts of stream restoration on forest resources. The research team will inventory trees, understory vegetation, and reptiles and amphibians to determine whether there are any potentially negative impacts as a result of positive stream restoration practices. / Ginny Rogers
2016 (award in 2017) / $217,322 / Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University / Improving Success of Stream Restoration Practices – Revised and Expanded” / This project will improve our understanding of the conditions under which stream restoration practices “fail,” with the long term goal of improving the overall application, design, and review of stream restoration projects. Information from this study will provide guidance on factors that indicate the risk of project failure, such as watershed size or impervious land use or channel specific stream power or relative floodplain width. / Dr. Theresa Thompson
2016 / $177,329.00 / UMCES / Evaluating the Effectiveness and Sustainability of Novel Stream Restoration Designs for Coastal Plain Streams in Maryland: Integrating Existing and New Data from Stream Restoration Monitoring / We propose to synthesize an extensive hydrochemical database from stream restoration sites in MD and DC to answer key questions pertaining to restoration effectiveness, sustainability, and ecological habitat condition. Stream restoration types include regenerative stream conveyance, step-pool conveyances, and valley restorations /stream-wetland complexes. We will address several questions and hypotheses. Our primary focus will be to determine the impact on nutrient and sediment loads of different stream restoration approaches. We hypothesize that results will be highly variable among restoration techniques, but that most designs will result in quantifiable reductions in nutrient loads. / Dr. Solange Filoso
2016 / $199,992.00 / Towson University / Determining the effects of legacy sediment removal and floodplain reconnection on ecosystem function and nutrient export / Legacy sediment removal and floodplain reconnection projects decrease floodplain elevations and increase groundwater levels, potentially increasing nitrogen cycling and habitat for native wetland plant species and decreasing erosion of phosphorus laden sediments. The proposed study assesses the efficacy of four legacy sediment removal and floodplain reconnection projects that range in impervious cover and vary in length by a factor of 4.5. By sampling within longer projects at several locations, we can determine the relationship between project length and degree of mitigation and whether this relationship varies with the amount of impervious surface in the watershed. / Dr. Vanessa Beauchamp
2016 / $43,949.00 / UMCES / Optimizing sampling frequency and monitoring design to assess the effects of storm water best management practices (BMPs) on water restoration / Our project will target the design of adequate monitoring programs to assess the effectiveness of best management practices (BMPs). Using representative streams from the Baltimore LTER watersheds (and others as available and applicable), we will develop sampling strategies for watersheds with variable percentage of impervious cover, accounting for the episodic nature of high and low flow. First, the project results will benefit existing monitoring programs by providing guidance for sampling strategies capable of producing reliable estimates of comparable precision and thresholds for detecting restoration activities. Second, the project will guide water quality monitoring related to MS-4 permitting and other BMP monitoring efforts. / Dr. Viacheslav Lyubchich
2016 / $175,730.00 / Carroll County Government / The self-recovery of stream channel stability in urban watersheds due to BMP implementation / A paired-watershed approach is proposed to evaluate the effectiveness of BMPs on stream channel protection. The research will evaluate the hydrogeomorphic response of BMP implementation in headwater stream drainage areas to determine if reductions in stream energy facilitate self-recovery of stream channel stability. Results will inform recommendations to credit BMPs as a hydrogeomorphic stream stabilization technique for sediment reductions as part of the Bay TMDL. It is expected that implementation of BMPs will reduce excessive stream channel and bed erosion by reducing stream energy resulting in the cessation of erosive flows that lead to the self-recovery of channel stability. / Ms. Gale J. Engles
2016 / $50,000.00 / AKRF, Inc. / Meta-Analysis of Biological Monitoring Data to Determine the Limits on Biological Uplift from Stream Restoration Imposed by the Proximity of Source Populations / This study will compile the biological monitoring data at stream restoration sites in the counties of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Frederick, Howard, and Montgomery. Additional data from the Maryland Biological Stream Survey (MBSS) and Maryland Stream Waders, as well as the five countywide biological monitoring programs, in adjacent stream networks will be evaluated as a predictor of biological condition at restoration sites. The hypothesis is that biological uplift (using benthic macroinvertebrate IBIs and metrics, and fish where available) at comparable stream restoration sites will be lower in stream networks in poorer biological condition, with implications for restoration potential and watershed planning. / Dr. Mark Southerland
2015 / $292,606.00 / UMCES / Quantifying the ecological uplift and effectiveness of differing stream restoration approaches in Maryland / This proposal focuses on how different restoration approaches (floodplain, channel, and instream habitat modifications), restoration age, and their landscape context affect ecological uplift via structure (benthic macroinvertebrates) and function (whole-stream metabolism) and if uplift is detected downstream of restorations. Our partners (Montgomery and Anne Arundel Counties) will help to identify at least 40 existing restorations for our triplet (upstream, restored, downstream) sampling design in a rigorous statistical framework with sufficient power to detect differences among approaches. We anticipate quantifying maximal, potential, and realized uplift in order to identify realistic goals and expectations for differing restoration approaches. / Dr. Robert Hilderbrand
2015 / $299,034.00 / Smithsonian Institution / Evaluating the Performance of Regenerative Stormwater Conveyances in Urban Versus Rural Watersheds / We will measure removal of nutrients and suspended sediments by Regenerative Stormwater Conveyances (RSCs) and relate removal efficiencies to impervious surface in the watershed and the rate and variability of water inflow. Using continuous monitoring and automated sampling we will accurately measure RSC performance under a range of flow conditions in watersheds with contrasting impervious cover. We hypothesize that RSCs reduce flow variability and remove nutrients and suspended sediments with decreasing efficiency as inflow rate and variability increase. Groundwater studies at one RSC will investigate sources of dissolved iron and transfers of nutrients from surface to groundwater flow. / Dr. Thomas Jordan
2015 / $145,284.00 / Straughan Environmental, Inc. / Biological and Suspended Sediment Disturbance: Wet and Dry Construction / This study will quantify how sediment load, biological impairment, and riparian disturbance are related to wet or dry construction techniques. Three stream stabilization projects in Howard County, Maryland will be divided into wet and dry construction areas (treatments), and discharge and suspended sediment will be monitored at each site. Repeated measures ANOVAs will be performed to compare wet and dry construction treatments and the upstream control with respect to suspended sediment load and benthic index of biologic integrity. / Dr. Dave Merkey
2015 / $88,076.00 / Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University / Improving the success of in-stream structures / The overall project goal is to improve the application, design, and success of stream restoration structures. A literature review of design recommendations and the physical, chemical, and biological impacts of instream structures will be conducted. Additionally, a field-based hydraulics study on a new instream structure, regenerative stormwater conveyance, will test the hypothesis that relative bedform submergence provides better flow velocity predictions than traditional roughness coefficients. This information will be summarized in a series of design guidance fact sheets, reviewed by practicing stream restoration professionals, a peer-reviewed journal article, a project web site, and at conferences and workshops. / Dr. Theresa Thompson