These concerns, coupled with market competition, are generating tangible conservation outcomes, including private set-asides of natural habitat within and surrounding vineyards, local policies that restrict grading on steep slopes, better control of sediment and erosion near streams, and restoring stream flows for native salmonids while providing growers with a stable water supply [48], [49].
In the years since, ecologists and conservationists have used this model in efforts to restore streams damaged by urbanization.
Property owners and local and state agencies restore streams for many reasons, like repairing damage from bridge and dam construction or runoff from farms, subdivisions and parking lots.
"It is impossible to try to restore streams to some condition that is totally different, before we showed up, before we caused disequilibrium," he said in an interview.
However, increased flash flood risks created by climate change are reigniting controversies regarding the vulnerability of restored streams to flooding.
And it could restore stream banks in the Schoharie basin.
In Pennsylvania, Dr. Merritts and Dr. Walter say, efforts to restore stream flow by removing dams ignored not just the sediment piled up behind them, but also the original landscape, in many cases not meandering streambeds but swampy valleys over which shallow water flowed in sheets.
Buffer strips and managed intensive rotational grazing (MIRG) have been proposed to protect and restore stream ecosystems in Wisconsin.
The findings from this study may improve our understanding of the main drivers of variations in stream water chemistry in different spatial and temporal scales, and will help managers protect and restore stream water environments using a basin-scale perspective.
