Comparing effects of active and passive restoration on the Middle Fork John Day River, NE Oregon

Abstract:

Since 2000, cattle grazing has been eliminated on over 14 km of the upper Middle Fork John Day. Starting in 2008, active restoration (log structures with dug pools, woody vegetation planting, and modifications to increase channel-floodplain hydrologic connectivity) was implemented on nearly 6 km within the cattle exclosure length. Implementation of active and passive restoration strategies in the same and adjacent reaches allows comparison of these two approaches. We have been monitoring these reaches since 2008.

Unexpectedly in response to grazing exclosure, a native sedge, Carex nudata (torrent sedge), has exploded in population. C. nudata grows in the active channel, anchoring itself tightly to the gravel-cobble river bed with a dense root network. As a result, C. nudata has changed erosion and sedimentation patterns including bank erosion, channel bed scour, and island formation. We present data on fish cover increases due to C. nudata and log structures, and on channel complexity before and after restoration. Both active and passive restorations are increasing channel complexity and juvenile fish cover, although in different ways. Fish cover provided by active and passive restoration are similar in area but different in depth and position, with C. nudata fish cover generally shallower and partly mid-channel. Residual pool depth is larger in log structure pools than in C. nudata scour pools, but C. nudata pools are more numerous in some reaches. By producing frequent, small scour features and small islands, it can be argued that C. nudata is increasing hydraulic complexity more than the large, meander-bend pools at log structures, but this is hard to quantify. C. nudata has also stabilized active bars, perhaps changing the bedload sediment budget. Positive habitat benefits of active restoration appear to be greater in the short term, but over the long term (20 years or more) effects of C. nudata may be comparable or greater.