Monitoring: Adopt-A-Buffer Initiative

Adopt-A-Buffer Initiative


	Virginia Fitzpatrick, dedicated Project Steward, monitoring her adopted buffer in Montgomery Co.

Goal: To use trained volunteers and watershed partners to assess the progress of 90+ riparian restoration projects implemented by DRN and its partners throughout the Delaware Watershed. DRN has been planting native plants along streams of the Delaware Watershed since 1992. Though projects are designed to require little maintenance, our experience has shown that most restoration projects do need some oversight and “tender loving care” for long- term success. Out of this knowledge, grew DRN’s Adopt-A-Buffer Initiative, which uses trained volunteer monitors and Project Stewards to track the progress of restoration projects over time. It is our goal that with consistent volunteer monitoring and periodic maintenance, we can keep projects on a trajectory that will ultimately lead to a self-sustaining and functioning natural system that infiltrates runoff, stabilizes stream banks, provides wildlife habitat, and improves the quality of the Watershed. Photo-monitoring and a Restoration Project Survey serve the basis of this visual assessment. In addition, stream cross sections, bank pin monitoring and benthic surveys are also available if a specific project’s study design requires this detailed information.

Volunteer Requirement: Project stewards must attend a training session and data must be collected twice a year in the spring and fall. Periodic refresher courses are required. A background on invasive plants and plant ID is preferred but not required.

Delaware Riverkeeper Network, with assistance from the PA Growing Greener Program and the William Penn Foundation, has developed the Adopt-A-Buffer Toolkit (PDF File), a manual designed for the Adopt-A-Buffer Initiative and other programs that implement stream restoration projects. This Toolkit includes a menu of low-cost, effective monitoring protocols and maintenance fact sheets that can be used to ensure the success of stream restoration projects.