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Book Review - Restoring Streams in the Cities by Ann Riley
"Creek Restoration From A to Z" could be the subtitle of Ann Riley's new book, Restoring Streams in Cities/A Guide for Planners, Policymakers, and Citizens (Island Press, May 1998). The most comprehensive and possibly the only book on urban stream restoration to date, Restoring Streams is timelier than ever, as an increasing number of cities dig up long buried creeks in an attempt to reclaim these "historic, aesthetic, and environmental assets" while agencies traditionally engaged in bulldozing, riprapping, and straightening streams have begun talking about environmental restoration.
Riley describes herself as a fluvial geomorphologist ("it comes in handy at cocktail parties"). She founded the Waterways Restoration Institute in Berkeley and writes from two decades of experience as a private citizen active in creek preservation and as the founder of the State Department of Water Resource's Urban Stream Restoration Program.
The book offers something for everyone, from a highly technical chapter for hydraulic engineers to simple restoration techniques for the layperson and advice on community organizing for those interested in saving local streams. Illustrated with instructive line drawings and photographs of restoration projects, Restoring Streams also covers the history and politics of flood controland floodplain management, the basics of hydrology, the scope of planning efforts at state, federal and local levels, and citizen involvement in stream restoration.
Restoration can be defined by what it is not, writes Riley, and that includes landscaping installed with little thought given to environmental function or values. Her purpose in restoring streams, she explains, is to restore the physical attributes of degraded streams so that the streams can again function as habitat for fish and other wildlife. While erosion and deposition are normal functions of streams, years of efforts to "control" them-by straightjacketing them in culverts or channels-combined with other effects of urbanization, can cause streams to excessively erode and deposit sediment. Some streams can regain their balance if left alone, and restoration can mean knowing when not to act, writes Riley.
For streams badly out of balance, Riley recommends various restoration techniques. But before any projects are undertaken, would-be restorers should understand which of three phases of urbanization their watershed is in and how that phase has contributed to the stream's current condition. "Urban stream restoration is not for the fainthearted," warns Riley, describing how she is constantly confronted with creek-impacting changes in land use-neighborhood shopping districts becoming shopping malls, trees being cut down, new stormwater systems going in....
Riley also shows that urban stream restoration can offer benefits beyond physical restoration, including creating jobs for youth and community stewardship. She reminds us that many young people in cities grow up with little experience of nature or sense of "geographic place," and suggests that urban streams can help residents connect with the natural world. By offering such environmentally sustainable and socially beneficial alternatives to traditional engineering "flood-control" projects, Restoring Streams refutes the traditional assumption that the best option for urban streams is to put them underground or in concrete.
Contact: Island Press (202)232-7933
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