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Dams, road crossings, and water withdrawals extensively fragment rivers, and watersheds often contain hundreds or thousands of barriers, some of which no longer meet societal purposes. Accordingly, both conservationists and infrastructure managers are faced with the challenge of prioritizing barriers for repair, replacement, or removal. Candidate projects have been prioritized with dozens of methods, which span a wide range of spatial scales, data and analytical requirements, mathematical complexity, and capacity to reconcile multiple perspectives and objectives. We briefly review barrier prioritization methods from the perspective of a policy maker or manager who must balance realities of stochastic opportunities, conflicting priorities, and risk of infrastructure failure. After outlining common motivations for barrier prioritization, we present a menu of techniques ranging from large‐scale, quantitative assessments to reactive, local response to failures. By clarifying the appropriate domain for each approach, this review informs the selection of prioritization methods for restoring riverine connectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Web-based decision support tools (DSTs) can be useful to facilitate decision-making processes for managing complex natural resource systems. However, the alignment of DSTs with the objectives in governmental policies or management plans and the influence of limited local data on the outputs of these tools may reduce the use of DSTs by decision makers. In this study, we examined the outcomes of web-based DSTs when different types of local data were incorporated and demonstrated a way to incorporate outputs from multiple DSTs or local inventories to benefit barrier removal decisions. Restoring habitat connectivity in rivers in northwest lower Michigan, USA, was used as a case study due to the abundance of local inventory data and web-based DSTs. We found that, when compared to prioritizations made using local data, some DSTs could produce similar outcomes (in barriers selected, cost, and the benefit for migratory fish) with limited data, but the trade-offs among users' objectives might influence the cost and effectiveness of DSTs' outputs. Improving the ability of DSTs to incorporate objectives consistent with policy and stakeholders' values (e.g., restore certain species or sedimentation control) across management scales can help close the gap between tool recommendations and management decisions while making the barrier removal prioritization process transparent and efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]