1. Elaborate restoration attempts are underway worldwide to return human-impacted rivers to more natural conditions. Assessing the outcome of river restoration projects is vital for adaptive management, evaluating project efficiency, optimising future programmes and gaining public acceptance. An important reason why assessment is often omitted is lack of appropriate guidelines. 2. Here we present guidelines for assessing river restoration success. They are based on a total of 49 indicators and 13 specific objectives elaborated for the restoration of low-to midorder rivers in Switzerland. Most of these objectives relate to ecological attributes of rivers, but socio-economic aspects are also considered. 3. A strategy is proposed according to which a set of indicators is selected from the total of 49 indicators to ensure that indicators match restoration objectives and measures, and that the required effort for survey and analysis of indicators is appropriate to the project budget. 4. Indicator values are determined according to methods described in detailed method sheets. Restoration success is evaluated by comparing indicator values before and after restoration measures have been undertaken. To this end, values are first standardised on a dimensionless scale ranging from 0 to 1, then averaged across different indicators for a given project objective, and finally assigned to one of five overall success categories. 5. To illustrate the application of this scheme, a case study on the Thur River, Switzerland, is presented. Seven indicators were selected to meet a total of five project objectives. The project was successful in achieving 'provision of high recreational value', 'lateral connectivity' and 'vertical connectivity' but failed to meet the objectives 'morphological and hydraulic variability' and 'near natural abundance and diversity of fauna'. Results from this assessment allowed us to identify potential deficits and gaps in the restoration project. To gain information on the sensitivity of the assessment scheme would require a set of complementary indicators for each restoration objective.

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Decision making in environmental projects is usually complex because of heterogeneous stakeholder interests, multiple objectives, long planning and implementation processes, and uncertain outcomes. Conflicting stakeholder interests in particular are often an important impediment to the realization and success of projects. Multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods are potentially useful for facilitating conflict resolution among stakeholder groups. However, some studies that have applied MCDA methods indicate that users are often skeptical about the value of MCDA methods and prefer the freedom of unaided decision making. We examine whether and how multiattribute value theory (MAVT), a particular kind of MCDA, facilitates conflict resolution in environmental projects. Therefore, the MAVT method is applied to a specific river rehabilitation project in Switzerland (Thur River). The main questions are: (1) Can the MAVT method predict the final preferences of stakeholders and therefore anticipate conflicts at an early stage? (2) Do stakeholders reconsider and change their preferences after using the MAVT method? (3) If they do, does this result in more consensus-oriented decisions? We find that the principal advantage of the method in our case was not the prediction of stakeholders' final preferences, but rather the methods' ability to facilitate more consensus-oriented decisions. The paper discusses possible reasons for this finding and concludes with recommendations for future applications of the MAVT method in environmental decision making.

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