Process-based restoration is partnering with nature to recover degraded river and stream catchments by removing impediments to physical and biological processes and harnessing the system’s fluvial and biological energy to do most of the restoration "work." Practitioners use low-risk approaches that minimize the use of fossil fuels.

Heavy machinery is primarily reserved to address source problems such as levees, roads, and legacy mine tailings that confine the fluvial landscape. Additional treatments are designed to replace missing or altered functional ecosystem components that maintain floodplain connectivity and complexity.

     Treatments may include adding woody features such as post-assisted log structures (PALS) and beaver dam analogs (BDAs), and large wood augmentation. Partnered restoration actions may include recruiting ecosystem engineers such as beaver, managing livestock, applying controlled burns, conifer thinning, and supplemental riparian and meadow vegetation planting. Interventions are guided by a stewardship mentality whereby they are adaptive over time in response to environmental feedback with a goal of encouraging a self-sustaining, dynamic ecosystem. 

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