Expanding Compensatory Mitigation Performance: Dynamic Alluvial Valleys and Beyond

Samuel Leberg
EPA (ORISE)
Washington, DC

Authors: Leberg, Samuel and Topping, Brian

At the National Stream Restoration Conference in 2023, we presented a workshop on expanding monitoring and performance to dynamic stream systems. In that workshop we presented various methodologies and considerations for streams lacking a robust methodology in 404 mitigation (e.g., streams with multiple channels, streams with beaver, stream-wetland complexes, etc.) and grouped these systems as Dynamic Alluvial Valleys (DAVs). We published conclusions from this session as a conference proceedings document and presented a subsequent talk exploring potential crediting structures. In this presentation, I will discuss some of the takeaways from these conference sessions (as well as subsequent developments), with a focus on our broad framework for proposing and evaluating DAVs. For potential sites, this framework explores broad design considerations, failure points, and multiple successful trajectories for site development. These sections have been written up as a citable academic paper which will be in press or published by the time of this conference. Additionally, we will discuss the broader applicability of this framework to process-based restoration generally, and to climate-resilient adaptive management.

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