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California Salmonid Stream Habitat Restoration Manual

1998 3rd edition

Prepared by:
Gary Flosi, Scott Downie, James Hopelain,
Michael Bird, Robert Coey and Barry Collins

The first edition of this manual, written by Gary Flosi and Forrest Reynolds, and published in 1991, formally synthesized and described the Department of Fish and Game's approach and technical methods for anadromous salmonid habitat restoration. From 1991 through 1994 the first edition was broadly distributed and used as a "standard methods" text by many habitat restoration and resource inventory workers. As a result, many suggestions for improvement of the manual were received by the authors.

The second edition, by Flosi and Reynolds was supported by a team that included the authors of this third edition, and was published in October of 1994. The second edition included a number of revisions: 1) a reorganization of sections for project planning and project implementation; 2) the just then recently revised stream channel classification system developed by David Rosgen; 3) a new monitoring and evaluation section; 4) a listing of all databases used for resource inventory and analysis as presented in the manual; 5) a protocol for a large woody debris inventory; 6) a description of required environmental review processes and permits; 7) an expanded and updated listing of sensitive species; and 8) numerous editorial changes to text and data forms.

This third edition, like the second, incorporates changes recently developed in the practice of stream habitat inventory and restoration. The authorship list has changed with this edition to more accurately reflect the contributions of the writing team members.

The new section , "Part XI Riparian Habitat Restoration," was added to the manual in May 2004. Circuit Rider Productions, Inc. (CRP) developed this section under a grant agreement with the California Department of Fish and Game. Part XI covers topics of human impacts on riparian habitats and methods to conserve and restore such habitats.

The revised section , "Part X Upslope Erosion Inventory and Sediment Control Guidance," was published in April 2006. It replaces the section previously titled "Part X Upslope Assessment and Restoration Practices" which was added to the manual in April 2004. The principle authors are Dr. Bill Weaver, Danny Hagans and Eileen Weppner, Professional Geologist, of Pacific Watershed Associates. This section describes the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) methodology for the identification of upslope and stream bank erosion, and techniques for the implementation of cost-effective erosion control treatments in salmonid watersheds

The new section , "Part IX Fish Passage Evaluation at Stream Crossings," was added to the manual in April 2003. The primary authors of this section were Ross N. Taylor and Michael Love. This section addresses fish passage evaluations at stream crossings (roads, bridges, etc.).

A table in Part IX, on page 42, was found to be incorrect. The corrections have been incorporated into the complete PDF documents below. Individual replacement pages for both the single- and double-sided versions are also available (2003-08-11).

 

Disclaimer: This manual describes many methods and techniques used with varying degrees of success by habitat restoration specialists. The methods and techniques described here represent only a starting point for project design and implementation. They are not a surrogate for, nor should they be used in lieu of, a project design that has been developed and implemented according to the unique physical and biological characteristics of the site-specific landscape.

The techniques and methods described in this manual are not a surrogate for acquiring the services of appropriate professionals, including but not limited to licensed professional engineers or licensed professional geologists, where such expertise is called for by the Business and Professions Code section 6700 et seq. (Professional Engineers Act) and/or section 7800 et seq. (Geologists and Geophysicists Act).

Download: Both the third edition of the manual and the added sections are available for download from this website as Adobe Portable Document Format files (PDF). Due to the size of these documents, we recommend you download them locally to your computer before trying to open them. With a 56k telephone modem connection, files may take fifteen minutes or more to download.