Restoring floodplain wetlands to expand habitat, assimilate nutrients, reduce erosion, and facilitate a more natural flow and disturbance regime
| When |
Oct 25, 2024
from 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM |
|---|---|
| Where | Shumaker Research Building room 139 |
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UofL's Biology seminar speaker on Oct. 25th is Dr. Bob Hawley, Ph.D., P.E., Director / Principal Scientist at Sustainable Streams, LLC.
Prior to European settlement, floodplain wetlands were abundant in North American river valleys. Four centuries of beaver extirpation, watershed deforestation, floodplain drainage, and stream channelization, and the associated accumulation of up to ~1 to 3 meters of post-settlement alluvium have left floodplains much drier and largely disconnected from their adjacent rivers and streams, restricting the ecosystem and societal services floodplains can provide. This underscores both the need for floodplain wetland restoration and the relative simplicity of the approach: removing post-settlement alluvium from the floodplain, re-establishing the native seedbank, and restoring a more natural connection to the river or stream.
This presentation will present insights from design, modeling, and construction of numerous floodplain wetland restoration projects that have been completed in partnership with US Fish and Wildlife and US EPA among others. The presentation will answer questions such as what makes a good site for a floodplain wetland, what are some of the key design factors to optimize them for various goals (e.g. maximizing nutrient reductions vs. offloading excessively erosive streamflow). Regardless of how they are optimized to meet a primary design objective, removing post-settlement alluvium from river floodplains provides an array of societal and ecosystem benefits including expanded flood storage, restored off-channel habitat for rare fish/birds, improved water quality, reduced erosion/biotic disturbance for mussels/macroinvertebrates, and the economic benefits of an abundant source of high-quality topsoil for farmers, landscapers, developers, etc.
Dr. Hawley is the Director and Principal Scientist for the Louisville-based consulting firm Sustainable Streams, LLC, which restores streams and wetlands in Kentucky, Ohio, and surrounding states.
He serves on the advisory board of the Symposium on Urbanization and Stream Ecology (SUSE). In addition to his consulting work, he is actively engaged in publishing research on stream and wetland restoration and policy: Explore his research here.
