New techniques have been pioneered in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to restore urban streams and their floodplains using diverse design approaches. These techniques can achieve significant nutrient and sediment removal while also restoring a number of other critical stream functions.
Revisiting Stream Restoration
In mid-2018, the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Urban Stormwater Workgroup asked CSN to facilitate a series of teams to re-evaluate the stream restoration protocols outlined by the Expert Panel and provide better guidance for practitioners. The result of that effort is four memos that now represent the official Chesapeake Bay Program recommendations for crediting stream restoration practices.
To access all of the most critical information from these updates in one place, please check out our Unified Guide, below. All of the Bay Program approved memos that provide the source material for the Unified Guide are also available below.
Unified Guide:
A Unified Guide to Crediting Stream and Floodplain Restoration Practices in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed
This new guide is a concise, easy-to-navigate resource that combines all of the critical information from the four recent updates to the 2014 Stream Restoration Expert Panel report. Finalized in September, 2021.
Below, you will find several older resources including the final Expert Panel report, completed in 2014, that originally defined the nutrient and sediment reductions that can be achieved using stream restoration techniques. The Expert Panel report is still a useful resource, but it is recommended that practitioners begin using the guidance in the new reports listed above. A CSN Fact sheet and FAQ document are also provided, but refer to the 2014 report, not the newer memos. These resources will be updated as soon as possible.
