How strong is the evidence - based on macroinvertebrate community responses - that river restoration works?

摘要

We reviewed river rehabilitation studies published from 1984 to 2019 to identify factors that might limit effective rehabilitation. This encompasses 89 papers that reported outcomes of 379 independent projects. We found that methods used to evaluate the outcomes of rehabilitation projects may have failed to properly assess the outcomes, which has led to a poor diagnosis of both the "problem" and the effectiveness of any "solution". We identified four methodological limitations that have often precluded the rigorous assessment of the effectiveness of stream rehabilitation: