Planning River Restoration in a Changing Climate

On December 7-11, 2010, a conference was convened in Tucson, Arizona that brought together river practitioners, scientists, private citizens, and conservationists from federal and state agencies, academic institutions, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the southwestern United States (U.S.), northern Mexico, and southeastern Australia to discuss lessons learned from their river restoration experiences. Key conference topics included the development of viable restoration objectives, planning and implementing restoration, monitoring results, climate change, environmental flow, native fish conservation, and restoration along transboundary rivers. Results are being incorporated into an applied river restoration guidebook, which summarizes the main steps of developing a stream restoration project, from planning and implementation to monitoring and evaluation. Some of the main lessons from the conference and overall strategy of the guidebook will be presented, with emphasis on the guidebook chapter that reviews considerations for developing river restoration in a changing climate