Natalie Kruse Daniels Presents at Ohio Transportation Engineering Conference

Natalie Kruse Daniels, director of the Environmental Studies Program at Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service, recently presented on the topic of floodplain reconnection stream restoration at the Ohio Transportation Engineering Conference, or OTEC.

The OTEC is an event for transportation professionals to learn about and discuss new ways to safely and efficiently move people and goods throughout the state, according to the OTEC website. The event was held on Oct. 26 and 27 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. 

Voinovich project partners at the Ohio Department of Transportation, or ODOT, invited Kruse Daniels and another Ohio University colleague, Associate Professor Ben Sperry from the Russ College of Engineering and Technology, to speak during a session on stream restoration.

“It's a great audience to be able to talk to, and a really good opportunity to share some applied results in stream restoration with a group that does stream restoration projects,” Kruse Daniels said. “There are a lot of regulations that drive stream restoration and a lot of private engineering firms and environmental engineering firms that design restoration projects, so to be able to have that conversation with that audience was great.”

Kruse Daniels presented on the conference’s first day to a national audience of more than 3,750 people to offer ideas on evaluating issues of water storage, the sediment retention and nutrient retention in connection with floodplain reconnection stream restoration.

“Streams are supposed to be able to flood … but with development with agriculture and urbanization, we have altered the way that our streams behave,” she said. “[The stream restoration practitioners] intentionally create a shallow channel that can easily flood into a wetland floodplain … You can retain more sediment and more nutrient on site.”

Kruse Daniels said she looks forward to continuing work on the ongoing project. She also anticipates forming bonds with these new connections made at the conference and thinking up some new projects.

“Stream restoration is a science that isn't settled,” Kruse Daniels said. “If we're going to be disturbing the national environment and using mitigation to replace those natural resources, we need to have a better understanding of how those restored sites are functioning.”