Over the past decade, the process-based design movement has become well established in the field of ecological restoration. The design ethos takes on many forms, and this online course will discuss the underlying aspects of the approach from project inception through closeout. Designed for engineers, landscape architects, geomorphologists, planners, agency staff, sustainability professionals and project funders, this course will examine past projects to define process-based restoration, its benefits and challenges, and how it compares to other approaches to restoration design. Through pre-recorded lectures and live instruction, you’ll learn appropriate uses of process-based restoration and how to quantify its success, how to set realistic and attainable goals and objectives for measuring a project’s performance, best practices for communicating with the public to manage expectations and explain nuances of natural processes, and how to quantify economic and ecological advantages of process-based restoration. By the end of the course, you’ll have a comprehensive understanding of the advantages and suitable uses of process-based design approach.

Learning Outcomes

• Recognize the differences between traditional form-based and process-based design approaches
• Define when process-based restoration is appropriate
• Identify realistic and attainable goals and objectives for projects
• Design achievable and measurable performance standards for process-based approaches
• Translate expectations and nuances to the public
• Calculate advantages of process-based restoration

Skills You Will Gain

• Process-based restoration design
• Goal and objective setting
• Public communication
• Quantification of economic and ecological advantages