Approach
EASTERN: Forests located within riparian areas serve important ecosystem functions, such as decreasing soil erosion, filtering water, and storing and recycling organic matter and nutrients. Trees in riparian areas also provide shade, which helps to buffer stream temperatures. Forested riparian areas can serve as corridors for wildlife and plant species migrating across otherwise fragmented landscapes. Many of these functions and benefits may be degraded if riparian forests undergo decline or exacerbated stress from climatic shifts and extreme events. The use of protective guidelines, such as best management practices and riparian management zones, can be used to avoid damage or additional stress to riparian areas during management activities.
WESTERN: Forests located within riparian areas serve important ecosystem functions, such as decreasing soil erosion, filtering water, and storing and recycling organic matter and nutrients. Trees in riparian areas also provide shade, which moderates stream temperatures, and woody material, which provides various kinds of structures and nutrients essential to stream ecology. Moreover, forested riparian areas serve as corridors for wildlife and plant species migrating across otherwise fragmented landscapes. Many of these functions and benefits may be degraded if riparian forests burn, or undergo decline or exacerbated stress from climatic shifts and extreme events. However, lack of forest disturbance can also lead to encroachment and loss of other important riparian ecosystems, or reduced water availability in streams and rivers. The use of protective guidelines, such as best management practices and riparian management zones, can be used to minimize damage or additional stress to riparian areas during management activities.
Tactics
- Restoring or promoting a diversity of tree and plant species to increase stream shading, provide a source of woody debris, stabilize the soil, and provide habitat and connectivity for wildlife.
- Anchoring with fabric, wire, or natural materials in order to stabilize eroding stream banks.
- Creating buffers along riparian areas with reduced or no harvest based on the landform, hydrology, and vegetation of the riparian zone in addition to any recommended buffer distance.
- Restoring or reforesting riparian areas adjacent to agricultural areas in order to reduce erosion and nutrient loading into adjacent water bodies.
- Managing water levels to supply proper soil moisture to vegetation adjacent to the stream during critical time periods, either by manipulation of existing dams and water control structures or restoration of natural dynamic water fluctuations.
- Reconnecting floodplains to rivers and restoring natural floodplain conditions and associated native habitats (e.g., bottomland forest, wetlands, and wet prairie and other grasslands) in order to restore fluvial processes.
- Managing livestock grazing regimes to minimize stream bank erosion and maintain riparian vegetation.
- Promoting and maintaining disturbance regimes with appropriate severity and frequency, such as fire, in order to prevent forests from encroaching into adjacent meadow and grassland ecosystems.
- Promoting and maintaining disturbance regimes with appropriate severity and frequency, such as fire, in order to maintain forest densities at levels required to sustain surface and ground water sources in adjacent wetlands.
- Promoting and maintaining disturbance regimes with appropriate severity and frequency, such as fire, in order to reduce fuel loading in riparian corridors.
Strategy
Strategy Text
Climate change will have substantial effects on a suite of ecosystem functions, such as carbon storage, nutrient cycling, wildlife habitat, hydroelectric generation and water provisioning. As a result, many management actions will need to work both directly and indirectly to maintain the integrity of ecosystems in the face of climate change. This strategy seeks to sustain fundamental ecological functions, especially those related to soil and hydrologic conditions.
1. Swanston, C.W.; Janowiak, M.K.; Brandt, L.A.; Butler, P.R.; Handler, S.D.; Shannon, P.D.; Derby Lewis, A.; Hall, K.; Fahey, R.T.; Scott, L.; Kerber, A.; Miesbauer, J.W.; Darling, L.; 2016. Forest Adaptation Resources: climate change tools and approaches for land managers, 2nd ed. US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. 161 p. http://dx.doi.org/10.2737/NRS-GTR-87-2