Table 1. Restoration and research objectives of the Upper Hunter River Rehabilitation Initiative, a combined research and restoration project (from Keating et al. 2008).

Restoration Objectives
1. To understand through monitoring and experimentation the dynamics of the riverine ecosystem of the Hunter River and its response to rehabilitation.
2. To create through revegetation of a 10-km stretch of the Hunter River a riparian plant community that (i) uses species that occurred or likely occurred on the original riparian and floodplain landforms, (ii) becomes self-sustaining, (iii) provides a habitat for terrestrial and aquatic indigenous species, (iv) provides a source of propagules for the natural colonization of native species downstream, (v) ensures bank stability equivalent to that provided by the existing willows (Salix spp.), (vi) improves water quality, and (vii) contributes to carbon storage.
3. To install large instream wood structures that (i) reduce bank erosion; (ii) contribute to the storage and redistribution of sediment to generate dynamic channel morphology appropriate to the local setting; (iii) contribute to the instream storage, transformation, and bioavailability of nutrients; and (iv) increase habitat diversity for fish and other aquatic biota.
4. To contribute to community education and involvement in riverine rehabilitation.
 
Research Objectives
1. To determine the effects of land use and geomorphic change throughout the upper Hunter catchment and the resultant downstream impacts on reach-scale processes.
2. To understand (i) how changes in land use affected fluvial geomorphic patterns and processes and (ii) how riparian revegetation and the reintroduction of instream wood affect contemporary fluvial geomorphology.
3. To understand the patterns and processes governing the establishment of vegetation (including exotic species) in a disturbed riparian setting.
4. To understand how reintroduction of instream wood affects (i) channel bathymetry, (ii) benthic and hyporheic processes and biota, and (iii) fish communities.
5. To understand how floristic changes in the riparian zone and geomorphic effects of instream wood reintroductions affect the instream retention and breakdown of organic matter.