Western Landowners Alliance

Spring 2025 Semester Low-Tech Restoration Workshop Series
2025-01-07 - 2025-04-22
The purpose of the Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration (LT-PBR) workshop series is to provide restoration practitioners with guidelines for implementing a subset of low-tech tools—namely beaver dam analogues (BDAs) and post-assisted log structures (PALS)—for initiating process-based restoration in structurally-starved riverscapes. Utah State University’s Restoration Consortium will describe ‘low-tech process-based restoration’ (LT-PBR) as a practice of using simple, low unit-cost, structural additions (e.g. wood and beaver dams) to riverscapes to mimic functions and initiate specific processes. Hallmarks of this approach include:

An explicit focus on the processes that a low-tech restoration intervention is meant to promote
A conscious effort to use cost-effective, low-tech treatments (e.g. hand-built, natural materials, non-engineered, short-term design life-spans) because of the need to efficiently scale-up application.
‘Letting the system do the work’ which defers critical decision making to riverscapes and nature’s ecosystem engineers

Spring LT-PBR Dates

Course #
Course Name
Dates

CEWA 5620
Introduction to LT-PBR
Jan 7, 14 & 21

CEWA 5622
Planning of LT-PBR
Jan 28 & Feb 4, 11

CEWA 5621
Science and Case Studies of LT-PBR
Feb 18, 25 & Mar 4

CEWA 5623
Design of LT-PBR
Mar 18, 25 & Apr 1

CEWA 5624
Implementation of LT-PBR
Apr 8 & 12*

CEWA 5625
Adaptive Management of LT-PBR
Apr 15 & 22

Registration opens November 14th.

Time: Tuesdays 1:30 – 4:15
Format: Online via Zoom (*April 15 9a-5p Saturday field trip in Logan, UT)
Cost: $315 per course (*$415 for CEWA 5624)
Courses can be taken individually or as a series.
Contact Ryan Thomas, restoration@usu.edu, with any questions.
