Stream systems.

Abstract

Restored, high-quality streams provide innumerable benefits to society. In the Pacific Northwest, high-quality stream habitat often is associated with an abundance of salmonid fishes such as chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), coho salmon (O. kisutch), and steelhead (O. mykiss). Many other native fish species, such as lampreys (Larnpetm spp.), sturgeons (Acipenser spp.), sculpins (Coffus spp.), and suckers (Catostomus spp.), may be of less economic importance but are of high value to stream ecosystems. Northwest streams and rivers also are valuable for numerous beneficial uses besides fisheries, such as providing high-quality water to municipal and industrial users, ameliorating damage from high flood flows, recharging groundwater aquifers, and routing sediment. Benefits arising from healthy rivers may go unnoticed by the average person but nonetheless are important to society. Of course, healthy streams also are more attractive than degraded systems and often serve as focal points for water-based recreation.

Citation

Williams, Jack E.; Reeves, Gordon H. 2006. Stream systems. In: Apostol, D.; Sinclair, M., eds. Restoring the Pacific Northwest: the art and science of ecological restoration in Cascadia. Washington DC: Island Press: 298-318. Chapter 13