This article provides advice on how to get local media to notice the work non-profits do and events they host.
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This report focuses on current water governance issues in British Columbia and offers insight how it could be transformed to be more sustainable with a Blueprint timeline and milestones.
This guidebook provides ten broad steps for any First Nation government or organization to follow in planning and implementing a successful large-scale fish habitat restoration project.
This guide was developed to assist community organizations in the watershed planning process. It covers an introduction to watersheds, stakeholder recruitment, watershed planning, communications and required resources.
This literature review assesses revegetation techniques used to control erosion in North America, and more specifically British Columbia. Classifications of techniques include shoreline protection, reconstructing streambanks and slope stabilization.
This scientific paper reviews the effectiveness of restoration techniques intended to improve fish habitat and develops a hierarchal strategy for prioritizing them based on: (1) principles of watershed processes, (2) protecting existing high-quality habitats, (3)…
This scientific article studies the relationship between instream water temperature and ambient air temperature in southern Ontario.
The Adopt A Stream manual is intended for community groups, schools and youth groups to improve and restore aquatic habitats in Nova Scotia. It provides basic steps on how to go about a restoration project…
This document provides photographs from multiple nature-like fishways that have been constructed around the world and lists critical design data for each project.
This scientific paper assessed the application of key ecological attributes to evaluate status of conservation targets at Emiquon Preserve along the Illinois River.
This manual provides background information on the Large Woody Debris Index, a field manual to reduce subjectivity when collecting data, as well as pictures and examples.
This database is a central archive of aquatic connectivity data in Nova Scotia to be used to address issues of aquatic habitat fragmentation.
The NSLC Adopt A Stream program offers training to enable watershed stewardship groups to plan, prioritize, and complete surveys of water crossings in their local watersheds. The course focuses on culvert surveys.
This film produced by Patagonia is about people, rivers and the fight for the future of wild fish and the environment that supports them. It explores the decline in wild salmon populations, and threats posed…
This scientific paper identifies potential connectivity restoration projects and provides a common evaluation system for the thousands of potential projects.
This paper looks at the method of assessing fish passage at culverts, common problems with the methodology, metrics and preliminary findings from over 4,000 assessments, particularly on why culverts fail to pass fish.
This study assessed marsh and riparian habitat compensation projects from 1983-2011 in the Fraser River Estuary. Recommendations are made to improve mitigation and monitoring of projects.
This technical report by DFO provides practitioners and proponents with guidelines for quantitative effectiveness monitoring. Topics include: spawning habitat, nursery habitat, rearing habitat, food supply, migration habitat, alternative monitoring designs and site selection.
These guidelines provide methods of bank stabilization design that meet all three measures of a successful design: feasibility, sustainability and environmental effectiveness. It provides a breakdown of project development into the categories of preliminary investigations…
This NSLC Adopt A Stream fact sheet describes the purpose of beaver management, where it is applicable, the advantages and disadvantages, design criteria and implementation steps.
This code of practice developed by the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources ensures that beaver dams are safely removed to minimize the impact of beaver dam removal on aquatic resources.
This background report establishes a common understanding of the use of biodiversity offsets in Canada and defines the issues that policy makers must consider in their implementation.
This guide document represents the culmination a planning framework conceptualized over many months of work developing Watershed Connectivity Remediation Plans in four target watersheds as part of the B.C. Fish Passage Restoration Initiative.
This report reviews that 255 detailed culvert assessment that were completed during the Broken Brooks project and remedial worked was undertaken on 46 barrier culvert sites.
The Canadian Rivers Institute offers additional training courses on becoming certified in assessing river health, water quality assessment, and backpack electrofishing. They also offer free webinars on fish and freshwater issues.
This discussion paper explores success factors that support collaborative watershed governance through case studies, as well as collaborative watershed governance organizations currently active throughout British Columbia.
Developed by the POLIS Water Sustainability Project and Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources, this report showcases a model for achieving more equitable nation-to-nation relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous governments, with a specific focus on freshwater…
Hosted by the National Estuarine Research Reserve. This monthly webinar series features project teams supported by NERRS Science Collaborative.
This study assess the colonization of urban wetlands by Ontario’s eight native turtle species and discusses connectivity of artificial wetlands and the importance of the whole wetland complex on turtle populations.
This program aims to implement a standard of set fish habitat monitoring methods across the Columbia River basin.
This toolkit provides information on developing a communications plan, channels of communication, document types and measuring results.
NOAA Fisheries provides numerous documents about community-based restoration programs.
This document provides over eighty illustrated design guidelines for conservation buffers in rural and urban landscapes. Each guideline describes a specific way that a vegetative buffer can be applied to protect soil, improve air and…
This project assessed seventy-five culvert crossings in the Kakwa River watershed. Each crossing was assigned a score that related to eight elements pertaining to erosion and sediment delivery potential.
This manual provides information on surveying culverts for type, slope, outfall height, constriction, and other physical parameters.
This document describes the importance of proper culvert design and installation for fish passage, including scheduling installation and maintenance, types of culvert design, retrofits and on-site considerations. Causes of barriers to fish passage in culverts…
This NSLC Adopt A Stream fact sheet describes the purpose of deflectors, where they are applicable, the types of deflectors, what habitats are created, the advantages and disadvantages of using this technique, design criteria and…
This document provides four categories for culvert design techniques: No Impedance, Geomorphic Simulation, Hydraulic Simulation and Hydraulic Design. Design examples and case studies are provided, alongside information on construction, maintenance and monitoring.
Alberta Transportation developed these guidelines to be a best practice approach to designing and constructing culverts throughout the province.
This guide is intended for people designing permanent road-crossing culverts to facilitate upstream fish migration. It provides guidance for projects involving new culvert construction and retrofitting or replacing existing culverts.
This document details Level 2 culvert inspections and the assessment of condition of various culvert components.
This policy provides guidance on undertaking effective measures to offset death of fish and the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat.
This NSLC Adopt A Stream fact sheet describes the purpose of digger logs, where they are applicable, what habitats are created, the advantages and disadvantages of using this technique and the design criteria.
This scientific article tests the effectiveness of five types of in-stream restoration structures (weirs, deflectors, cover structures, boulder placement and large woody debris) on salmonid abundance and physical habitat characteristics.
Ducks Unlimited Canada provides interactive maps of the Canadian Wetland Inventory Progress map, Waterfowl Migration map, and Southern Quebec Wetland Inventory.
This review conducts a critical assessment of the scientific literature on ecological buffers, provides an overview of relevant policies in southern Ontario and develops an evaluation methodology for determining appropriate buffer widths around natural heritage…
This document describes ecological buffers, findings from most recent science and recommended conservation practices.
This DFO manual educates citizens on topics related to watershed management, including: stewardship, watershed processes, human impacts and how to reduce them, how streams function, watershed and stream assessments, and provides fact sheets on fish…
This guide developed by the University of Waterloo was written for students and researchers, however, most of the information is applicable to a wider audience looking to promote campaigns or projects.
This protocol developed by the BC Ministry of Environment is a systematic watershed-based process used to determine and restore fish passage at culverted fish-stream crossings.
These guidebooks provide advice for First Nations who want to take action on watershed planning. They propose a model of First Nations-led watershed planning and aim to support increased First Nations involvement in regional watershed…
This document provides guidance on reducing impacts to wildlife and incorporating best management practices within transportation panning and development projects. It summarizes the current state of knowledge on road ecology and crossing system design.
This manual provides practitioners with general information and procedures that apply to the planning, design or rehabilitation of watercourse crossing projects. Topics include relevant legislation to watercourse crossing projects, fish passage and habitat requirements, effects…
The NSLC Adopt A Stream Program provides fact sheets to be used by groups doing general project planning and proposal applications. Topics include instream structures to restore natural meander patterns, bank stabilization structures, instream debris…
These inspection procedures are intended for fish biologists to assess fish habitat constraints at culverts associated with road crossings. It encourages a watershed approach to evaluating fish habitat and restoring access.
This document establishes baseline design criteria for technical and nature-like fishways intended to improve passage for migratory fish and other aquatic organisms.
This document provides guidance on how to evaluate the variation of velocity within a culvert cross-section to facilitate fish passage design.
This literature review discusses general fish passage considerations, as well as upstream and downstream passage technologies.
This resource documents the relationship between habitat quantity and quality and salmon production. It also compares the effectiveness of numerous common restoration techniques such as fish passage, instream structures, off-channel/floodplain habitat, riparian improvement and sediment…
This guidebook helps forest and other resource managers and practitioners to plan and implement sound fish-stream crossing practices. It includes British Columbia-specific legislative reference material and the province’s strategic approach to addressing fish passage at…
This Act, governed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, provides a framework for proper management and control of fisheries, and the conservation and protection of fish and fish habitat.
These guidelines describe a specific methodology for determining the vertical stability of stream channels in the vicinity of existing road crossing.
This scientific article reviewed published evaluations of stream rehabilitation techniques worldwide and summarized the effectiveness of these techniques for improving physical habitat, water quality and increasing fish and biotic production.
This toolkit provides products to control invasive sea lamprey.
This guide was developed to help users understand the value of collaborative watershed governance, build capacity to design and participate in collaborative watershed processes and understanding a range of governance approaches and examples through British…
This guide provides private landowners with information on restoration activities in riparian areas including; planting native vegetation and reducing livestock impact.
This technical document compiles a series of short literature reviews and additional references on topics including general methods, overview of stream processes and restoration, case studies, data compilation, preliminary assessments, and field data collection. It…
This guide explains why it is important to avoid and minimize disturbances to lakes, rivers, streams and other watercourses, as well as what to do when alterations are required. It also highlights lower-risk activities that…
These guidelines present a project classification system, initial assessment and project planning, pre-project biological monitoring, pre-project chemical monitoring, river channel stressors and responses, hydrology, geometric design concepts computational design tools, common channel and bank practices,…
This DFO document provides procedural and technical information to ensure that engineers and other design professionals properly incorporate fish passage into watercourse crossings.
This document provides an overview of the interactions between boreal wetlands and forests. It presents guiding principles for wetland stewardship and planning considerations for avoiding or minimizing adverse effects to wetlands.
This scientific article provides information as to the causes of degradation of aquatic ecosystems, common concepts and approaches to the conservation and restoration of freshwater and marine ecosystems, and optimal ways to develop restoration schemes.
This Smart Prosperity Institute video shows the latest trends for how Canadians consume information and provides best practices for turning research findings into general public-friendly communications.
This Smart Prosperity Institute video teaches tools to communicate research with journalists and the media. Much of this information would also be relevant to a wider audience interested in promoting campaigns or projects.
This Smart Prosperity Institute video teaches how to convey research findings to policymakers.
This scientific paper studies fish and angler use at a freshwater artificial reef in Lake Michigan.
This project undertook a systematic review of Indigenous watershed initiatives and co-governance arrangements to identify capacity gaps and contribute to shaping the future of water/watershed planning and a new watershed governance regime in British Columbia.…
This document presents the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority’s Integrated Restoration Prioritization (IRP) framework for healthy rivers, shorelines, and regional biodiversity. The IRP assists in a more efficient restoration planning process and helps to select…
This paper explains the Integrated Restoration Prioritization approach and its use in the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority.
This document provides an overview of streambank protection, site assessment, reach assessment and restoration techniques.
This paper presents the solutions to a complex site-specific culvert project in Peel region. It breaks down the design parameters and site investigations required, the environmental constraints and the construction process.
A Smart Prosperity report examining the Canadian conservation finance context across protected and conserved areas, forestry, agriculture, and ecological restoration, and provide pathways to overcome barriers and catalyze growth.
This guide provides information on soft and hard armoring techniques to deal with erosion problems on lake shorelines. It also provides recommended shoreline protection methods.
This document presents three techniques for using large wood structures to enhance or create aquatic habitat – placed large wood, large wood replenishment and trapping mobile wood.
This fact sheet describes the ecological benefits of large woody debris and general guidelines for its management.
This scientific article shares seven lessons learned from experiences as a research partnership, using the Ekati diamond mine in the Northwest Territories as a case study.
This handbook provides accessible information to community members how streams work and how actions may impact river health, restoration strategies and undertaking stream restoration projects.
This design manual provides restoration practitioners with guidelines for implementing beaver dam analogues and post-assisted log structures in riverscapes.
The River Restoration Centre has created this manual to help river managers identify potential restoration techniques for river restoration and sustainable river management.
This guide is designed to assist and improve the work of land managers, policy makers and habitat creation practitioners by using the findings from this study to guide the state of habitat compensation in the…
This podcast discusses how to properly pitch a story to the media (primarily TV stations) and to the right person.
This scientific article explores the potential for beaver relocation throughout the Snohomish River Basin in Washington with a model that identifies some of the basic building blocks of beaver habitat suitability.
This document provides a set of methods for monitoring Atlantic salmon that are field-tested, cost-effective and founded on best scientific knowledge.
This scientific paper reviews restoration practices and defines the characteristics of projects that are good candidates for multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA).
This Ontario Nature document explores the potential benefits and challenges of wetland offsetting to inform policy development in Ontario. It reviews policy outcomes and lessons learned from jurisdictions where offsetting policy has been in place…
This dataset contains the Canadian Hydrographic Units for the Northern Appalachian-Acadian Region of Canada and cross-border watersheds with the United States.
This dataset contains the second version of the Stream Classification for the Northern Appalachian-Acadian Region of Canada. Freshwater ecosystems are classified based on five biophysical characteristics: size, gradient, alkalinity, temperature, and tidal influence. There is…
This dataset contains the Watershed Health Assessment for the Northern Appalachian-Acadian Region of Canada.
This Act provides funding and administrative direction for implementing the North American Waterfowl Management Plan.
The Adopt A Stream Program delivers a one-day training course to field crews associated with the program. Training covers Nova Scotia environment permits, restoration design, ecology of the watercourses, how restoration techniques improve watercourse health…
This scientific paper explores offsetting impacts to marine fish habitat through the creation of artificial rock reefs.
The Online Watershed Library is a searchable, online database of research articles, manuals, assessment tools, and regulatory information. It is intended to save practitioners time by providing access to an up-to-date database on stormwater and…
This database provides data sets on topics including plants and animals, water, geology and agriculture. There are also featured mapping applications including a flow assessment tool for Ontario’s watersheds and provincial stream water quality monitoring.
This protocol contains a series of standardized methodologies for identifying sites, evaluating benthic macroinvertebrates, sampling fish communities, assessing physical habitat and water temperature and data management.
This manual is intended to show how streams work and to help people recognize when they need to be rehabilitated. It provides project planning principles, rehabilitation techniques, and demonstration projects.
This document is for home or business owners to understand riparian areas, how to identify if specific riparian areas are damaged, where to plant, developing a planting strategy for a site and the types of…
This NSLC Adopt A Stream fact sheet describes the purpose of planting streamside vegetation, where it is applicable, the advantages and disadvantages, design criteria, soil preparation and implementation steps for different types of vegetation.
This scientific article tests the difference in fish abundance in riprap, sand and macrophyte-dominated substrate to determine the impact of habitat modification choices on favouring undesirable fish species during restoration efforts.
This guide provides information on assessing fish passage effects for new development proposals and identifies regulatory tools that should be used to manage these effects.
This chapter examines the fundamentals of prioritizing rehabilitation in urban watersheds, assesses rehabilitation effectiveness and how best to communicate results to multiple audiences.
This document provides riparian buffer design principles.
The European Centre for River Restoration has compiled case studies, best practices and studies on river restoration in Europe. Themes include flood management, urban river restoration, and habitat & biodiversity. How to do River Restoration…
This document reviews a collection of restoration project information and data to create repeatable monitoring protocols.
This guide and fact sheets are designed to assist organizations in their rehabilitation efforts on topics such as: boulder clusters, deflectors, digger logs and beaver dam removal.
The International RiverFoundation is developing a blueprint for organizations internationally to commit to and transform their rivers into resilient rivers.
Ducks Unlimited provides research, guides and best management practices for the following topics: resource roads and wetlands guide, wetland road crossing and hydrological monitoring, and field guides for Boreal wetlands.
The Restoration Ecology Journal provide scientific articles about terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecological restoration.
The Northwest Fisheries Science Center has produced research projects on the following topics: restoration planning, assessments and problem identification, and restoration for a changing climate.
This one-day training course hosted by the Canadian Rivers Institute provides an overview of river processes and identifies conflicts in river management. It is particularly relevant to senior managers in planning and management roles, and…
This report has been developed to assist in design and construction information for stream restoration in Iowa. It details six channel defining techniques: cut-off sills, engineered log jams, longitudinal peaked stone toe, bendway weirs, stream…
This manual provides stream crossing assessors with information and issues for the management of stream crossings in Alberta.
This NSLC Adopt A Stream fact sheet describes the purpose of rock sills, where they are applicable, what habitats are created, the advantages and disadvantages of using this technique and the design criteria.
This report documents data findings and offers guidance for future designs of rock weirs, such as selecting the parameters needed.
This project monitored, restored, and educated the public on fish habitat in the Shediac Bay watershed. Topics include: habitat and threat assessments for culverts, water temperature monitoring, fish population surveys and stream assessments, restoration, restocking…
This scientific article breaks down the restoration planning process into steps to achieve the best outcomes for restoration.
This document defines shoreline buffers and discusses what they should look like and how wide they should be, based on experience in Ontario.
This document provides an introduction to bioengineering, planning considerations, bioengineering approach and contacts and approval processes for Ontario.
This document provides standards of practice for stream restoration in the Driftless Area, United States.
Provides a map of where stewardship organizations are located across Canada.
This manual provides an in-depth description into stream analysis and design of both natural and man made streams including; planning stream habitat projects, field exploration, evaluation of stream behavior and construction.
The Stream Rehabilitation Training Program hosted by Trout Unlimited Canada provides information on the science and best practices of rehabilitating stream ecosystems and associated watersheds. The six workshops are designed for both conservation volunteers and…
This meta-analysis of restored wetland sites looks at the rate of recovery and the state of the post disturbance systems as compared to their reference conditions.
This scientific paper assesses the use of beaver-related restoration projects in the western rangelands, finding that practice and implementation of beaver restoration has outpaced research on its efficacy and best practices.
The Sustainable Technologies Evaluation Program provides training courses led by conservation authority staff members and industry professionals with experience designing, constructing, maintaining and monitoring sustainable technologies in Canada.
Monthly webinars are offered through membership and free quarterly recordings are uploaded on YouTube.
This guide provides a standardized procedure for the identification and management of riverine erosion hazards in Ontario. It serves to assist technical staff experienced in natural hazards management to select the most appropriate methods and…
This manual is for community groups and practitioners in Prince Edward Island with steps outlining how to manage watersheds including; gaining background knowledge on the watershed, understanding key impacts on the watershed, assessing priority needs,…
This article provides advice on how to use bridges to answer tough, typically negative questions during interviews without evading the question.
This document is the Federal Government’s policy for wetland conservation drafted for the RAMSAR Convention. It focuses on strategies for the use and management of wetlands.
This systematic review assesses the effectiveness of different non-native fish removal methods, and identifies the factors that influence the overall success rate of each type of method.
This systematic review assesses the effectiveness of techniques currently used to create or enhance spawning habitat for substrate-spawning fish in temperature regions, and it identify the factors that impact the effectiveness of habitat creation or…
This document provides a description of Ontario aquatic ecosystems and habitat types, as well as advice on how to best work in and around water to minimize disturbance.
This weekly informal podcast hosted by Nick Kramer in the United States highlights projects and people that make up the fisheries science profession.
This scientific paper identifies a major gap in the transfer of knowledge between academic and decision makers involved in stream restoration for fish habitat in Quebec and suggests adopting a freedom space for river management…
This scientific article evaluates information gathered in the CanFishPass database to identify trends concerning fishways and fish passage in Canada.
This report summarizes the results of a nationwide assessment of human effects on fish habitat in rivers and estuaries in the United States. It provides a basis for comparing fish habitat condition on a national…
This discussion paper by the BC Ministry of Environment to stimulate discussion about the development of a new offsetting policy for British Columbia. It defines offsetting; how it is approached in British Columbia, elsewhere in…
When looking for publicity, the media will be interested to hear either (1) your expertise (2) your story. It is not enough to just share about funding, or even an event you want coverage at.…
This strategy provides guiding principles and practical tools for implementing habitat projects across the Toronto waterfront. There is also a compendium of habitat restoration techniques.
The US Army Corps of Engineers undertake restoration activities for wetlands, riparian habitat, floodplains and other aquatic systems, and provide descriptions of past and ongoing restoration projects.
This technical document provides a background on Large Woody Material, environmental and habitat considerations and how to design structures.
The USGS Publications Warehouse provides access to over 160,000 publications written by USGS scientists.
Promotes process-based natural stream restoration, and the rehabilitation of aquatic and riparian ecosystems. It provides a list of factors and criteria to consider when making decisions, planning and designing stream restoration. Topics include site, reach,…
This document provides five different water crossing design methods: no slope culverts, stream simulation culvert designs, bridges, temporary culverts or bridges and hydraulic design fishways. There is a selection guide to help the designer determine…
These technical guidelines for New Brunswick were developed to promote environmentally acceptable design and construction methods for alteration to watercourses and wetlands.
The Center for Watershed Protection provides webcasts for stormwater and watershed professionals.
This handbook is intended to advance the use of a watershed approach in the selection, design and siting of wetland and stream restoration and protection projects. Over sixty-five examples are provided to capture a variety…
The Watershed Science Bulletin is an online, peer-reviewed journal featuring practical, science-based solutions to water resource problems. The journal’s mission is to synthesize research and experience and transit it to those who need it to…
A venue for sharing and exchanging information about boreal wetland and waterfowl best management practices (BMPs) to raise awareness and foster collaboration between industry, government, academia, consulting, and conservation organizations.
Barriers and shortcomings of wetland mitigation and voluntary restoration projects are identified for pre-construction, during construction, and post-construction. It provides an overview for wetland restoration challenges and some potential solutions.
Ducks Unlimited hosts a Wetlands 101: Introduction to Boreal wetlands focused on wetland types, classification and identification.
This scientific paper reviews literature on natural and placed wood as a river restoration technique.
These reports break down the profile, threats and health of all watersheds in Canada.