In 2013, the Big Thompson River and its North Fork experienced extreme flooding that devastated the community and caused two deaths along with extensive property and infrastructure damage. The flooding also severely degraded the river corridor’s ecological, scenic, and recreational values.
To help develop resilient river restoration solutions, Biohabitats provided ecological restoration planning services for the Big Thompson Watershed Coalition’s Priority Reach Restoration Planning project. As a sub-consultant to Stantec, Biohabitats assisted with data review and field assessments, stakeholder and public engagement, design coordination and technical guidance, and 30% design development for three reaches.
Biohabitats also helped conduct ecological surveys to determine potential natural vegetation types and identify geographically appropriate vegetation types. Biohabitats reviewed baseline ecological mapping collected during field surveys to collaborate on restoration targets and trajectories. After contributing to the development of preliminary conceptual design plans, Biohabitats provided input on proposed plan form alignment, representative cross-sections, channel profiles, and other design elements.
Rooted in understanding the river and its formative progressions through natural stream evolutionary processes and anthropogenic activities within the watershed, the restoration design was crafted to work with the natural processes of the stream and incorporate local, native materials wherever possible.
Owner: Stantec Consulting Services- Fort Collins
Bioregion: Rocky Mountain/Plains
Physiographic province: Southern Rockies
Watershed: Big Thompson
Collaborators: Stantec