Increased water resources demand in rivers regulated by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dams has intensified the conflict between preservation of lotic ecosystems and economic benefits of stream regulatin or channel modification. The Riverine Community Habitat and Restoration Concept (RCHARC) facilitates evaluation of effects of different channel configurations or release patterns on fish habitat and can be used to balance water resources development and natural resource preservation. The RCHARC is applied to the Gavins Point Dam tailwater of the Missouri River as a case history to assess the effects of different reservoir release alternatives on habitat for native riverine warmwater fishes. Application of the RCHARC requires four steps. First a comparison standard must be selected which the project alternatives can be contrasted. Second, hydrologic and hydraulic features of the comparison standard having fish habitat significance are described and summarized as an annual series of monthly depth or velocity frequency distributions. Third, a similar approach is used to describe hydrologic and hydraulic features of the project alternatives. Fourth, the habitat value of each of the project alternatives is determined by similarity of their depth or velocity distributions to the distributions of the standard. The more similar an alternative is to the standard system, the higher it will be ranked.

This document is a cooperative effort among fifteen Federal agencies and partners to produce a common reference on stream corridor restoration. It responds to a growing national and international interest in restoring stream corridors.

The two volumes of this handbook provide a comprehensive account of the emerging and vibrant science of the ecological restoration of both habitats and species. Ecological restoration aims to achieve complete structural and functional, self-maintaining biological integrity following disturbance. In practice, any theoretical model is modified by a number of economic, social and ecological constraints. Consequently, material that might be considered as rehabilitation, enhancement, reconstruction or re-creation is also included. Restoration in Practice provides details of state-of-the-art restoration practice in a range of biomes within terrestrial and aquatic (marine, coastal and freshwater) ecosystems. Policy and legislative issues on all continents are also outlined and discussed. The accompanying volume, Principles of Restoration defines the underlying principles of restoration ecology. The Handbook of Ecological Restoration will be an invaluable resource to anyone concerned with the restoration, rehabilitation, enhancement or creation of habitats in aquatic or terrestrial systems, throughout the world.