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Summary1. Increasingly, river managers are turning from hard engineering solutions to ecologically based restoration activities in order to improve degraded waterways. River restoration projects aim to maintain or increase ecosystem goods and services while protecting downstream and coastal ecosystems. There is growing interest in applying river restoration techniques to solve environmental problems, yet little agreement exists on what constitutes a successful river restoration effort. 2. We propose five criteria for measuring success, with emphasis on an ecological perspective. First, the design of an ecological river restoration project should be based on a specified guiding image of a more dynamic, healthy river that could exist at the site. Secondly, the river's ecological condition must be measurably improved. Thirdly, the river system must be more self-sustaining and resilient to external perturbations so that only minimal follow-up maintenance is needed. Fourthly, during the construction phase, no lasting harm should be inflicted on the ecosystem. Fifthly, both pre-and postassessment must be completed and data made publicly available. 3. Determining if these five criteria have been met for a particular project requires development of an assessment protocol. We suggest standards of evaluation for each of the five criteria and provide examples of suitable indicators. 4. Synthesis and applications . Billions of dollars are currently spent restoring streams and rivers, yet to date there are no agreed upon standards for what constitutes ecologically beneficial stream and river restoration. We propose five criteria that must be met for a river restoration project to be considered ecologically successful. It is critical that the broad restoration community, including funding agencies, practitioners and citizen restoration groups, adopt criteria for defining and assessing ecological success in restoration. Standards are needed because progress in the science and practice of river restoration has been hampered by the lack of agreed upon criteria for judging ecological success. Without well-accepted criteria that are ultimately supported by funding and implementing agencies, there is little incentive for practitioners to assess and report restoration outcomes. Improving methods and weighing the ecological benefits of various restoration approaches require organized national-level reporting systems.

Cultural ecosystem services (ES) are consistently recognized but not yet adequately defined or integrated within the ES framework. A substantial body of models, methods, and data relevant to cultural services has been developed within the social and behavioral sciences before and outside of the ES approach. A selective review of work in landscape aesthetics, cultural heritage, outdoor recreation, and spiritual significance demonstrates opportunities for operationally defining cultural services in terms of socioecological models, consistent with the larger set of ES. Such models explicitly link ecological structures and functions with cultural values and benefits, facilitating communication between scientists and stakeholders and enabling economic, multicriterion, deliberative evaluation and other methods that can clarify tradeoffs and synergies involving cultural ES. Based on this approach, a common representation is offered that frames cultural services, along with all ES, by the relative contribution of relevant ecological structures and functions and by applicable social evaluation approaches. This perspective provides a foundation for merging ecological and social science epistemologies to define and integrate cultural services better within the broader ES framework.natural capital | scenic beauty | cultural landscapes | tourism | spiritual value

Despite expenditures of more than 1 billion dollars annually, there is little information available about project motivations, actions, and results for the vast majority of river restoration efforts. We performed confidential telephone interviews with 317 restoration project managers from across the United States with the goals of (1) assessing project motivations and the metrics of project evaluation and (2) estimating the proportion of projects that set and meet criteria for ecologically successful river restoration projects. According to project managers, ecological degradation typically motivated restoration projects, but post-project appearance and positive public opinion were the most commonly used metrics of success. Less than half of all projects set measurable objectives for their projects, but nearly twothirds of all interviewees felt that their projects had been ''completely successful.'' Projects that we classified as highly effective were distinct from the full database in that most had significant community involvement and an advisory committee. Interviews revealed that many restoration practitioners are frustrated by the lack of funding for and emphasis on project monitoring. To remedy this, we recommend a national program of strategic monitoring focused on a subset of future projects. Our interviews also suggest that merely conducting and publishing more scientific studies will not lead to significant improvements in restoration practice; direct, collaborative involvement between scientists, managers, and practitioners is required for forward progress in the science and application of river restoration.

A recent opinion piece rekindled debate as to whether geography's current interdisciplinary make-up is a historical relic or an actual and potential source of intellectual vitality. Taking the latter position, we argue here for the benefits of sustained integration of physical and critical human geography. For reasons both political and pragmatic, we term this area of intermingled research and practice critical physical geography (CPG). CPG combines critical attention to power relations with deep knowledge of biophysical science or technology in the service of social and environmental transformation. We argue that whether practiced by individuals or teams, CPG research can improve the intellectual quality and expand the political relevance of both physical and critical human geography because it is increasingly impractical to separate analysis of natural and social systems: socio-biophysical landscapes are as much the product of unequal power relations, histories of colonialism, and racial and gender disparities as they are of hydrology, ecology, and climate change. Here, we review existing CPG work; discuss the primary benefits of critically engaged integrative research, teaching, and practice; and offer our collective thoughts on how to make CPG work.Keywords: physical geography, critical human geography, transdisciplinarity, anthropoceneIntervention en géographie physique critique Un article d'opinion paru récemment est à l'origine de la relance d'un débat qui pose la question à savoir si le fondement interdisciplinaire actuel de la géographie serait une relique historique ou une source réelle et potentielle de vitalité intellectuelle. En prenant la défense de la seconde position, nous militons en faveur des bénéfices découlant de l'intégration soutenue de la géographie physique et de la géographie humaine critique. Pour des raisons à la fois politiques et pragmatiques, nous avons nommé ce domaine de recherche et de pratique enchevêtré la géographie physique critique (GPC). C'est au service de la transformation sociale et environnementale que la GPC intègre un regard critique sur les relations de pouvoir à la connaissance profonde de la science ou de la technologie biophysique. Que se soient des individus ou des équipes qui la pratiquent, les travaux de recherche en GPC peuvent contribuer à l'amélioration de la qualité intellectuelle et à l'élargissement de la pertinence politique de la géographie humaine critique et géographie physique, compte tenu que la séparation de l'analyse des systèmes naturels et des systèmes sociaux pose des difficultés d'ordre pratique. À l'origine des paysages sociobiophysiques se trouvent autant les relations inégales de pouvoir, les histoires de colonialisme et les disparités raciales et entre les sexes que l'hydrologie, l'écologie et les changements climatiques. Dans cette partie de l'article, nous passons en revue les travaux actuels en GPC, nous engageons une discussion sur les principaux avantages des approches intégratives et véritablement critiques en recherche, dans l'ense...