Visual‐based rapid assessment techniques provide an efficient method for characterizing the restoration potential of streams, with many focusing on channel stability and instream habitat features. Few studies, however, have compared these techniques to see if they result in differing restoration priorities. Three rapid assessment techniques were contrasted at three wild trout streams in western New York with different amounts of channel disturbance. Two methods focused only on geomorphic stability, whereas the third addressed physical habitat condition. Habitat assessment scores were not correlated with scores for either geomorphic assessment method and they varied more between channels with different degrees of disturbance. A model based on dynamic equilibrium concepts best explains the variation among the streams and techniques because it accounts for a stream's capacity to maintain ecological integrity despite some inherent instability. Geomorphic indices can serve as effective proxies for biological indices in highly disturbed systems. Yet, this may not be the case in less disturbed systems, where geomorphic indices cannot differentiate channel adjustments that impact biota from those that do not. Dynamically stable streams can include both stable and unstable reaches locally as characterized by geomorphic methods and translating these results into restoration priorities may not be appropriate if interpretations are limited to the reach scale.
The restoration of lotic ecosystems as currently practiced is constrained by a limited understanding of the emergence of stream ecosystem functions and their linkages to perceived ecosystem services valued by society. An investigation was made into the connections between ecosystem function and hydraulic structure of a stream impacted by gravel mining operations in western New York. Stream ecosystem metabolic parameters were measured using two‐point dissolved oxygen diurnals on multiple reaches of the same stream, and were correlated with geomorphic and hydraulic descriptors of the same reaches. Results showed ecosystem metabolism at the reach scale varied as a function of geomorphic condition, where higher primary production and community respiration (CR) were observed for reaches observed to be unstable vs. those that were stable or restored. The metabolic variance of a stream ecosystem, proposed as a measure of the degree to which a desired ecological functional goal has been achieved post‐restoration, is determined as the rate of change of the ratio of primary production to CR. Shifts in the P/R ratio were evident in reaches post‐restoration, presumably as a result of changes in hydraulic structure, supporting the utility of the ratio by describing a direct link between instream hydraulic conditions and ecosystem function.
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