Evaluation of Promoting Roadside Revegetation: An Integrated Approach to Establishing Native Plants

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FOREWORD

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Research and Technology Program strives to ensure transparency, accessibility, and responsiveness of Research, Development, and Technology (RD&T) for all stakeholders.

This report evaluates outcomes associated with Roadside Revegetation: A Practical Guide to Working with Native Plants, a 2007 guide encouraging agencies to adopt improved roadside revegetation practices.⁽¹⁾ Native roadside revegetation involves establishing or reestablishing appropriate plant material on areas that road construction projects disturb. This report should be of interest to natural resource practitioners responsible for the design and implementation of revegetation projects along roadways.

Monique Evans, Acting Associate Administrator
Research, Development, and Technology

Technical Report Documentation Page

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Table of Contents

• Executive Summary.
  
  
• 1. Introduction.
  • 1.1 Evaluation Purpose.
  • 1.2 Report Structure.
  • 1.3 Project/Program Background.
    
    
• 2. Evaluation Design.
  • 2.1 Evaluation Methodology
• 2.2 Data Limitations.
  
  
• 3. Evaluation Findings.
  • 3.1 End Users’ Adoption of Roadside Revegetation Practices.
  • 3.2 Establishment of Native Plants and Other Positive Outcomes.
    
    
• 4. Recommendations.
  
  
• 5. Conclusions.
  
  
• Appendix A. Roadside Revegetation.
  
  
• Appendix B. Telephone Interview Guide.
  
  
• Appendix C. Annotated Bibliography.
  
  
• 6. Acknowledgments.
  
  
• 7. References.

List of Figures

• Figure 1. Screenshot. Roadside Revegetation Website sessions (January 1, 2010, through February 17, 2015).
• Figure 2. Graph. Degree to which survey respondents agreed with statements about Roadside Revegetation

List of Tables

• Table 1. Roadside Revegetation evaluation logic model.
• Table 2. Performance measures for short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes.
• Table 3. Website statistics from January 1, 2010, through February 17, 2015.

List of Abbreviations

Executive Summary

This report documents an evaluation of outcomes associated with Roadside Revegetation: A Practical Guide to Working with Native Plants, a 2007 guide encouraging agencies to adopt improved roadside revegetation practices.⁽¹⁾ The Research and Technology (R&T) Evaluation Program was created to help the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) assess how effectively it is meeting its goals and objectives and to provide useful data to inform future project selections. For each evaluation, FHWA’s R&T Evaluation Program Evaluation Team (evaluation team) is made up of non-FHWA third-party evaluators not involved in the research programs and projects being evaluated.

The evaluation describes how effective the guide and related materials such as a website and training course featuring the guide, have been in achieving their stated goals.^(2,3) Specifically, the project team sought to understand the following:

• Whether end users of the guide have changed their previous revegetation practices to adopt those put forth in the guide.⁽¹⁾
• How the establishment of native plants has been improved and resulted in other positive outcomes.

Native roadside revegetation involves establishing or reestablishing appropriate plant material on areas that road construction projects disturb. Its benefits include soil and slope stabilization, improved water quality, aesthetics, carbon sequestration, weed suppression, and enhanced wildlife habitat. Recognizing that sharing information about roadside revegetation processes and techniques is one way to advance the practice and achieve these benefits, FHWA’s Office of Federal Lands Highway teamed with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to develop an assessment and monitoring protocol for roadside revegetation, which is described in the guide.⁽¹⁾

After conducting a literature review, the project team administered an online survey supplemented by subsequent telephone interviews to learn about end users’ perspectives on Roadside Revegetation.⁽¹⁾ Informal feedback on the guide that FHWA and USFS have received as well as visitation statistics to Roadside Revegetation’s website were also analyzed.⁽³⁾

Findings and Recommendations

The project team found that end users have adopted the Roadside Revegetation practices by using the guide as a reference tool to reinforce existing measures mandated by agency policies.⁽¹⁾ Generally, when end users are aware of Roadside Revegetation and its associated materials, they have found the guide to be very informative and useful. There was also evidence suggesting that overall outcomes on projects that apply Roadside Revegetation’s recommended practices guide have been improved. Specifically, survey respondents and interviewees believed Roadside Revegetation has generally improved erosion, sustainability and environmental stewardship, and visitor experience outcomes (see Establishment of Native Plants and Other Positive Outcomes). There are fewer indications that the technical guide has helped improve safety or reduce maintenance costs.

Given these findings, the following recommendations (discussed in detail in chapter 4) are offered:

• Increase outreach to deliver roadside revegetation to a wider audience, especially within FHWA division offices. This includes identifying appropriate points of contact for revegetation at division offices and in FHWA headquarters.
• Provide additional training in Roadside Revegetation practices.⁽¹⁾
• Support the enhancement of the community of practice on the Roadside Vegetation website.⁽⁴⁾
• Consider making design standards available for native revegetation.
• Place future emphasis on site preparation and appropriate soil conditions.
• Tailor future roadside revegetation training courses for personnel who do not have natural resource backgrounds.
• Publish articles about this evaluation and any planned follow up activities as part of a renewed outreach effort on roadside revegetation. Potential publications for such an article include FHWA’s Public Roads magazine or Successes in Streamlining newsletter.