City of Calgary's Bioengineering Demonstration and Education Project
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No. 83 Fall 2019 IrisThe Alberta Native Plant Council Newsletter City of Calgary’s Bioengineering In This Issue Demonstration and Education City of Calgary’s Bioengineering Demonstration and Project Education Project .........................1 Maggie Nelson, Public Program Coordinator, City of Calgary Monitoring the Effectiveness of Long-Term Bioengineering The City of Calgary and Government materials, like wood, to stabilize Restoration in the City of Alberta have partnered to create riverbanks and reduce erosion. of Calgary ......................................2 a project that demonstrates how Bioengineering techniques help The State of the Prairie .................4 bioengineering can be used to improve to create fish and wildlife habitat, fish habitat and stabilize eroding river improve water quality and increase our Strengthening Invasive banks. The project is located on the resiliency to future flood and drought. Plant Management bank of the Bow River between Pearce in Alberta, Canada ........................6 Estate Park and the Inglewood Bird Bioengineering is not a new practice; Sanctuary. Our goal is to increase however, the incorporation of awareness and understanding of how bioengineering technology into stream soil bioengineering structures are built, bank erosion protection or flood what benefits they can bring to our mitigation works has been limited watershed, and how they might be used in Alberta, until recently, because of to mitigate the impacts of future flood factors such as a lack of familiarity events. with techniques, concerns about long-term sustainability, cost, lack Bioengineering is the science of of available design and construction using living plants and other natural expertise, and a lack of opportunity. Look for more information on the ANPC’s website. www.anpc.ab.ca Cover photo: Marsha Hayward Treed fen in autumn, northern Alberta. Bioengineering demo and education project along the Bow River in Calgary. City of Calgary See Bioengineering Demo Project, page 8 Iris ♦ The Alberta Native Plant Council Newsletter ♦ No. 83 Fall 2019 Monitoring the Effectiveness of Long-Term Bioengineering Bank Restoration in the City of Calgary Mike Gallant, MScE, P.Eng. Water Resouces Engineer, Kerr Wood Leidal Associates Ltd. Healthy riparian areas provide many ecological, social and economic benefits, including water quality protection, resilience to floods and drought, biodiversity and recreational opportunities. In recognition of these benefits and the importance of healthy riparian areas, the City of Calgary (the City) developed a Riparian Strategy in 2013 and a Riparian Action Program (RAP) in 2016 to implement the strategy. Monitoring over 80 riparian and bank restoration projects completed over the last decade and 30 projects planned for the next few years has been identified as a key action to meet the City’s riparian restoration targets. The City initiated the Mike Gallant Riparian Monitoring Program (RMP) in 2017 to support the goals and objectives of RMP team discussing field protocols at a site the RAP and retained a consultant team consisting of Kerr Wood Leidal Associates on Nose Creek Ltd. (KWL) as prime consultant with partners Terra Erosion Control Ltd., Alberta Riparian Habitat Management Society (Cows and Fish), France’s National Institute for Environmental Science and Research (Irstea), and Longview Ecological Ltd. The RMP is a five-year program (2018-2022) with the goal of providing a better understanding of (1) long-term riparian health trends, and (2) the improvements in riparian health resulting from recent and ongoing riverbank bioengineering and riparian restoration projects in Calgary. Other key goals are to evaluate the effectiveness of riparian planting and bioengineering restoration techniques, and to provide recommendations on system improvement including design approaches and maintenance procedures. The effectiveness monitoring component of the RMP consists of monitoring to assess post-construction project site conditions and to evaluate changes resulting DoddAlan from the implemented projects. The technical details of the RMP were developed Quadrat along a transect: components of the in 2017-2018 and include field data forms, field data collection procedures, data RMP vegetation assessment analysis protocols, and reporting templates. Fifty-five bioengineering bank restoration sites were selected to be monitored at least once over the five-year RMP. The annual data collection, analysis and reporting program began in the summer of 2018, where 19 bioengineering riverbank sites underwent detailed effectiveness monitoring. Statistical analysis from the 2018 data have led to the following advances in understanding of riverbank bioengineering project effectiveness: • Placing soil amendment around live cuttings results in statistically longer average leader growth. • Fencing around live cuttings appears to result in higher total live cutting survivorship. • Reusing native topsoil may result in lower invasive species occurrence. • Planting ends of live cuttings below the water table can lead to good survival despite harsh conditions. • Rooted plants’ survivorship was statistically higher than live cuttings. • Following best practices for live cuttings harvest, storage, handling, installation, and maintenance leads to best project outcomes. Mike Gallant • Brush layers were used in the highest-ranking sites. However, other RMP team discussing field protocols at a site techniques such as live staking also resulted in successful sites. on the Elbow River See Restoration Monitoring, page 3 2 www.anpc.ab.ca Iris ♦ The Alberta Native Plant Council Newsletter ♦ No. 83 Fall 2019 Restoration Monitoring, from page 2 Several areas of improvement were also identified as listed below. • Six failure sites1 were identified with the main reasons for failure as follows: ○ herbivory by beavers (no fencing) ○ planting in anoxic soils ○ insufficient planting depth for live cuttings ○ construction inconsistent with design ○ inadequate or no maintenance • Live cutting survivorship was low for most of the common species used in Calgary. Survival for live cuttings year 1 post-construction was measured to be 26% for balsam poplar (Populus balsamifera), 31% for hungry willow DoddAlan (Salix famelica), 62% for sandbar willow (Salix interior), and 53% for red Tags placed on monitored vegetation osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera). Survival for live cuttings year 3 post- construction was measured to be 0% for balsam poplar (Populus balsamifera), 44% for hungry willow (Salix famelica), 43% for sandbar willow (Salix interior), and 100% for red osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera). • Fourteen different invasive species were found with the most common being creeping (Canada) thistle (Cirsium arvense) found at 14 of 19 sites, smooth perennial sow thistle (Sonchus arvensis ssp. uliginosus) found at 13 of 19 sites, scentless chamomile (Tripleurospermum inodorum) found at 12 of 19 sites, and common toadflax Linaria( vulgaris) found at 10 of 19 sites. • Construction timing outside of live cutting dormancy periods, particularly late summer construction, resulted in very low survival at some sites. As part of the RMP protocols, ratings for design, implementation, maintenance, DoddAlan overall project success, and Bank and Riparian Quality Index (a new indicator Measuring vegetation growth developed specifically for the RMP) were assigned to each monitored site. On average, the bank effectiveness monitoring sites scored 60/100. The site with the highest score was Riverdale Phase 2 Downstream, with an overall rating of 92/100. Based on the results and observations above, a series of recommendations were developed. Note that recommendations will be updated annually as more data is collected. • Improve project documentation and record keeping and share it with the RMP team. • Apply a soil amendment on live cuttings. • Put fences around newly installed live cuttings and rooted stock until vegetation is established. Mike Gallant • Avoid planting in anoxic soils. Dead live cutting planted too shallow into anoxic soils • Use the appropriate matting products and install according to best practices. • Where appropriate, use potted plants instead of live cuttings. • Install potted plants according to best practices. • Install live cuttings according to best practices. • Improve maintenance practices such as irrigation, controlling invasive weeds, repairing fencing, and replacing dead vegetation and reseeding poorly established areas. The 2019 data collection for 21 riverbank bioengineering projects is complete, and results will be analyzed over the next few months. ♦ ___________________________________________ Mike Gallant 1 For the purposes of the RMP, riverbank bioengineering/riparian restoration failure sites are either due to Successful establishment of live cuttings structure failure or due to vegetation survival rates of less than 25%. Failure sites are removed from the planted in April (right side of timber cribwall) program once reasons are documented and replaced with sites where vegetation data can be collected. The failure sites can be reintroduced into the program if they are repaired and are needed according to the and failure of live cuttings planted in August sampling protocols to achieve statistically significant results. (left side of timber cribwall) ♦ www.anpc.ab.ca 3 Iris ♦ The Alberta Native Plant Council Newsletter ♦ No. 83 Fall 2019 The State of the Prairie Prairie Conservation Forum, September 11, 2019 About the