Chapter 13: Riparian restoration 

Restoration of riparian areas is sometimes very simple, and can be initiated simply by removing ongoing disruption by grazing livestock. Improved stream flow management can also lead to very rapid recovery in some systems. More commonly restoration work will have to involve watershed scale approaches to restore the function of the whole system. If this can be done many plants will come in on their own, and others will establish more easily from seeding, cuttings or container planting. Less severely damaged riparian areas are very resilient and may make very fast progress. Some tree cuttings may grow 6 feet [2 m] a year with excellent survival.

In other cases it will only be possible to make minor improvements in the riparian ecosystem by removing local disruption and planting small project areas. This helps, but desert riparian systems are very dynamic, and a flash flood can easily wipe out months of work in a few minutes if the restoration project is only a couple of acres in the middle of a damaged watershed.

More complete cures require watershed scale efforts to restore hydrologic function.