Developing a Standard of Practice by Organizing Goals/Objectives, Multidisciplinary Investigations, and Design Criteria into a Process for Design: An Example

Designing and implementing stream habitat improvement techniques is a current field of engineering/landscape architecture that has no generally agreed upon standards of practice. Therefore, many different approaches are used, some analytical and others experienced based. This variation in approach often leads to confusion within professions and prevents adequate review of both completed and proposed designs and projects. This is further complicated as many practitioners believe that design is as much art as science. Professional practice standards define decision-making procedures/methods used by practitioners and establish the basis for rational design development. This paper highlights a process whereby the development of goals and objectives, investigations of specialty disciplines (hydrology, geomorphology, hydraulics, fisheries, etc.) followed by the development of design criteria prioritized by goals/objectives, provide a basis for a standard of practice. A stream improvement example serves to illustrate key points.