Great Expectations: Deconstructing the Process Pathways Underlying Beaver-Related Restoration

Authors

Caroline S. Nash, Boise State UniversityFollow
Gordon E. Grant, USDA FS, Corvallis, Oregon
Susan Charnley, USDA FS, Portland, Oregon
Jason B. Dunham, US Geological Survey, Corvallis, OregonFollow
Hannah Gosnell, Oregon State UniversityFollow
Mark B. Hausner, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NevadaFollow
David S. Pilliod, US Geological Survey, Boise, IDFollow
Jimmy Taylor, National Wildlife Research CenterFollow

ORCID IDs

CAROLINE S. NASH http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0339-619X

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

3-2021

Citation

BioScience, March 2021 / Vol. 71 No. 3, pp 249-267

doi:10.1093/biosci/biaa165

Comments

This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US

Abstract

Beaver-related restoration is a process-based strategy that seeks to address wide-ranging ecological objectives by reestablishing dam building in degraded stream systems. Although the beaver-related restoration has broad appeal, especially in water-limited systems, its effectiveness is not yet well documented. In this article, we present a process-expectation framework that links beaver-related restoration tactics to commonly expected outcomes by identifying the set of process pathways that must occur to achieve those expected outcomes. We explore the contingency implicit within this framework using social and biophysical data from project and research sites. This analysis reveals that outcomes are often predicated on complex process pathways over which humans have limited control. Consequently, expectations often shift through the course of projects, suggesting that a more useful paradigm for evaluating process-based restoration would be to identify relevant processes and to rigorously document how projects do or do not proceed along expected process pathways using both quantitative and qualitative data.