Lessons Learned from Over a Decade of Designing for Floodplain Connectivity
Suzanne Hoehne, CSE
Biohabitats, Inc.
Ohio River Bioregion
Louisville, KY
Floodplain connectivity delivers significant ecological uplift by restoring groundwater/surface water hydrologic connectivity, which drives riparian habitat ecology. Different ways to restore floodplain connectivity have evolved, including raising the invert of the existing overwide and entrenched stream channel to reconnect to the floodplain and activating relic channels by installing wood/rock grade control structures. We have designed, permitted, and constructed several stream restoration projects using this technique in various situations (karst geology, glacial wetlands, and ravines) on watersheds of different sizes (drainage areas between 250 ac through ~10 mi2, with restored stream lengths ranging from approximately 1000-lf to 5 miles) in the Midwest and MidAtlantic regions. Often, these projects have a reduced construction access footprint, lower carbon footprint, and a fraction of what other stream restoration methods cost. While we believe this type of restoration is a big part of the future of stream restoration, this approach is not without challenges. This presentation will identify challenges (e.g., seepage and piping, site suitability, durability, permitting) to use wood structures as stream restoration controls and identify design elements to reduce these challenges. Moreover, remediation efforts have been developed to improve restoration performance when these challenges have compromised our design goals.
About Suzanne Hoehne, CSE
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