Treesearch

List of publications related to Caspar Creek.

Streamflow, suspended sediment, and bedload have been monitored since 1962 in the 473-ha North Fork and the 424-ha South Fork of Caspar Creek. These watersheds are about 7 km from the Pacific Ocean, on the Jackson Demonstration State Forest, 10 km south of Fort Bragg, California, USA (Ziemer et al. 1996)

I examined the relationships between timber harvest, creek habitat, and vertebrate populations in the North and South forks of Caspar Creek. Habitat inventories suggested pool availability increased after the onset of timber harvest activities. Increased large woody debris in the channel was associated with an increase in the frequency of blowdown in the riparian buffer zone. This increase in large woody debris volume increased the availability of pools.

Interdisciplinary research efforts to integrate the ecological aspects of water with its physical and societal roles have a long history as well as some interesting new developments. Small, paired, experimental watersheds, with their long-term monitoring systems for data collection and their integrated ecosystem approach to analysis, have been at the center of recent advances.

The effects of forest harvest on stream-water quality and nitrogen cycling were examined for a redwood/Douglas-fir ecosystem in the North Fork, Caspar Creek experimental watershed in northern California. Stream-water samples were collected from treated (e.g., clearcut) and reference (e.g., noncut) watersheds, and from various locations downstream from the treated watersheds to determine how far the impacts of these practices extended. Additionally, a detailed nutrient cycling study was performed in a clearcut and reference watershed to gain insights into changes in nitrogen cycling after...

Suspended sediment has been sampled at both the North and South Fork weirs of Caspar Creek in northwestern California since 1963, and at 13 tributary locations in the North Fork since 1986. The North Fork gaging station (NFC) was used as a control to evaluate the effects of logging in the South Fork, in the 1970's, on annual sediment loads. In the most conservative treatment of the data, suspended loads increased by 212 percent over the total predicted for a 6-yr period commencing with the onset of logging. When the roles of the watersheds were reversed and the same analysis repeated to...

Water quality and long-term sustainability are major components addressed within the ecosystem approach to forest management. Forest harvest practices are often implicated as having adverse impacts on sensitive aquatic communities and on the long-term sustainability of forest ecosystems. While careless harvest practices can certainly cause adverse impacts, proper forest management practices can minimize or even eliminate these adverse effects. As forest ecosystems become more intensively managed, it is imperative that management practices be developed and utilized to minimize environmental...

These proceedings report on 36 years of research at the Caspar Creek Experimental Watershed, Jackson Demonstration State Forest in northwestern California. The 16 papers include discussions of streamflow, sediment production and routing, stream channel condition, soil moisture and subsurface water, nutrient cycling, aquatic and riparian habitat, streamside buffers, cumulative effects, monitoring. A detailed annotated bibliography of 107 papers from Caspar Creek is included.

The old-growth redwood forest of North Fork Caspar Creek was clear-cut logged between 1860 and 1904. Transportation of logs involved construction of a splash dam in the headwaters of North Fork Caspar Creek. Water stored behind the dam was released during large storms to enable log drives. Before log drives could be conducted, the stream channel had to be prepared by removing all obstructions, including large woody debris jams, from the channel. Comparison of present-day woody debris loading on North Fork Caspar Creek (24 kg m-2) to physically similar streams in old-growth redwood basins...

Cumulative effects are the combined effects of multiple activities, and watershed effects are those which involve processes of water transport. Almost all impacts are influenced by multiple activities, so almost all impacts must be evaluated as cumulative impacts rather than as individual impacts. Existing definitions suggest that to be significant, an impact must be reasonably expected to have occurred or to occur in the future, and it must be of societally validated concern to someone or influence their activities or options. Past approaches to evaluating and managing cumulative watershed...