Road Ecology Center

Beginning in 1999, the USDA-Forest Service in partnership with other federal agencies and non-government natural resource organizations, initiated an interdisciplinary, multi-year project to evaluate efforts for protecting and restoring riparian area values impacted by roads. After 2-1/2 years of field and literature reviews, the project identified and documented 12 of 24 treatments and techniques currently being used across the country to either protect or restore aquatic habitat associated with Forest Service highways and low-volume roads. Successful treatments or techniques that directly protect or restore aquatic habitat impacted by roads included wildlife and fish passage improvement, channel and floodplain structure placements, and re-connecting water bodies.