Restoration for Compliance: An Approach to Meeting Thermal Limits of a NPDES Permit. Water quality trading enables facilities to meet regulatory obligations by restoring ecological functions such as shade on a stream or instream channel complexity. Restoration actions that reduce watershed pollutants, such as thermal impacts, can be quantified and purchased as “credits.”

1. Restoration for Compliance:
An Approach to Meeting Thermal Limits of a NPDES Permit

2. Why Leverage Water Quality Trading?
Water quality
trading enables
facilities to use
the quantified
benefits of
restoration
actions to meet
NPDES permit
requirements.

3. Restoration Actions for Water Quality & Quantity
ACTIONS RECOMMENDED AFTER ANALYSIS OF WATERSHED:
• Riparian
re-vegetation
• Increase
channel
complexity
• Instream flow
augmentation

4. Riparian Re-vegetation
ACTIONS:
• Replanting
streamside
vegetation
SUPPORTS:
• Reducing erosion
and sedimentation
instream
• Providing cooler
shaded areas for
aquatic organisms
• Increased
complexity
instream

5. Flow Augmentation
ACTIONS:
• Ensuring adequate
water quantity
throughout the
year
SUPPORTS:
• Increasing
instream flows can
have a significant
impact on instream
temperatures by
increasing instream
velocities and
hyporheic
connectivity

6. Quantifying Ecological Uplift
• The benefits of a restoration action can be calculated in units for compliance
(kilocalories per day), or in terms of ecological improvement (weighted linear
feet of habitat)
• Models are constantly being improved and calibrated for this purpose

7. • Solar radiation is
measured pre- and
post- project
implementation
• Reductions in solar
radiation are the
result of increased
canopy cover for
riparian re-vegetation
or reduced channel
surface area in
channel modification
projects
Models for Quantification: Shade-A-Lator

8. Models for Quantification: Water Temperature Transaction Tool
• Incoming solar
radiation and
atmospheric heat
exchange are modeled
pre- and post- project,
taking into account
landscape and
meteorological
parameters
• Increased flow buffers
against heat exchange
and lowers
temperatures instream

9. • Just as models can be used
to estimate thermal
benefits, models can also
estimate increases in
habitat availability and
improvement in ecological
processes
• Investing in restoration for
compliance is an
investment in watershed
health
• Important to monitor
qualitative improvements
to the local environment
as well as quantitative
water quality parameters
Models for Quantification: Ancillary Benefits

10. A Portfolio of Restoration Actions for Compliance

11. • Watershed assessment to
evaluate number and
location of potential
restoration actions
• Thermal quantification of
potential restoration
actions at coarse scale:
will require reference site
evaluation to refine these
estimates for credit
development
• Ecological, social,
economic feasibility
assessment of thermal
credits for compliance in
the watershed
Next Steps