In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Fields and Streams: Stream Restoration, Neoliberalism, and the Future of Environmental Science by Rebecca Lave
  • Ted Endreny (bio) and Kellen Backer (bio)
Fields and Streams: Stream Restoration, Neoliberalism, and the Future of Environmental Science Rebecca Lave . 2012. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Paperback; $22.95; cloth, $59.95. ISBN: 978-0-8203-4391-4/4392-1. 184 pages.

Stream restoration theory and practice are rapidly evolving, like rivers themselves. As we discover failures in restoration projects, we employ adaptive management methods and use the failure to modify our approach. Or at least, so we hope. Rebecca Lave tells a rich story about the history and likely future of stream restoration. We recommend this book to those involved in stream restoration or the broader field of ecosystem management. Lave's analysis of neoliberalism and scientific debates should also appeal to anyone interested in the practice, and the future, of science. The book is thoroughly researched, delightfully written, and slim (126 pages, not counting appendices and references). Lave provides a detailed explanation of how the Natural Channel Design (NCD) approach to stream restoration became the expectation for most practitioners and anathema to prominent academics and theorists. Lave calls this disagreement the Rosgen Wars, named for Dave Rosgen, founder of the NCD approach. The systematic NCD approach was developed as an alternative to historical practices of channel armoring and straightening.

Lave spent several years studying the Rosgen Wars, speaking with NCD practitioners and NCD critics, trying to define the battle lines and their implications for environmental science. NCD practitioners include a diverse group of scientists, engineers, and managers from all levels of government, university scientists and engineers, restoration consultants, and Rosgen himself. NCD critics are most vocally represented by a smaller group of academic and governmental scientists, engineers, and consultants. There are also many pacifists who utilize ideas from both sides.

Lave studied the Rosgen Wars to investigate two questions: Why does Rosgen's NCD system govern the field of stream restoration despite ardent efforts by established scientists to discredit and dislodge it? What fuels NCD critics in this protracted Rosgen War, especially given the lack of definitive research comparing NCD to other approaches to stream restoration? Rosgen's NCD approach is widely adopted, according to Lave, because it emerged as a systematic training program when stream restoration was urgently needed, and because Rosgen was charismatic and successful practitioner whose methods were based on, and endorsed by, Luna Leopold. Luna has since died (due to natural causes, not the war) but his stature as a luminary in fluvial morphology has not diminished. Opposition to NCD is fervent, according to Lave, because Rosgen shifted the power structure in the field of fluvial geomorphology, causing his method to be viewed, in the practice of stream restoration, as more legitimate than the work of opponents. According to Lave, Rosgen's success and his opposition are part of the same whole, like pressure and resistance forces acting on water, and exist in every disciplinary field. To make this claim Lave draws on the work of the theorist Pierre Bourdieu, who argues that disciplinary fields are inherently antagonistic and combative, with participants fighting over legitimacy and authority.

Lave reveals basic fluvial geomorphology to the reader as she covers the tenets of NCD, a history of stream restoration, and a description of the points of contention about NCD. In chapter 4, Lave offers a balanced opinion on the [End Page 339] major claims and counter-claims made by NCD critics and practitioners. Critics allege, for example, that Rosgen teaches trainees to approach stream restoration as simple when it is not; Lave reports that Rosgen teaches restoration as doable, but not simple. Additionally, critics suggest Rosgen asserts NCD-based field measurements can be used to estimate stream evolution processes when they cannot; Lave reports that critics use similar field measurements to diagnose stream processes. A more substantive critique comes from those who suggest that NCD's goal is to restore streams to a stable or dynamic equilibrium condition when streams are inherently unstable; Lave reports that scientific consensus considers streams as unstable and NCD training needs to be brought up to date on this issue. Other claims...

pdf