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Forested riparian areas

Informally Refereed
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Download (PDF 614 KB): https://research.fs.usda.gov/download/treesearch/46964.pdf

Abstract

Riparian areas are typically highly productive areas that sustain important socioecological benefits, including the capacity to modulate effects of watershed disturbances on aquatic systems. Recent studies have shown that fire behavior in riparian areas varies with landscape attributes. Smaller, headwater riparian areas often burn similarly to adjacent uplands, whereas riparian areas next to larger streams (4th order and higher) often burn less frequently and less severely because of moister microclimates, and therefore can serve as fire breaks within a landscape. However, other riparian areas may accumulate fuels rapidly owing to their high productivity, and during dry fire seasons they can serve as wicks that carry high-intensity fire through a landscape.

Parent Publication

Keywords

ecological restoration, socioecological systems, ecosystem resilience, forest planning, fire management, altered fire regimes, wildfire, climate change, anthropogenic disturbance, invasive species, water resources, species of conservation concern, California

Citation

Hunsaker, C.T.; Long, J.W. 2014. Forested riparian areas. In: Long, J.W.; Quinn-Davidson, L.; Skinner, C.N., eds. Science synthesis to support socioecological resilience in the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascade Range. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-247. Albany, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station: 323-340. Chap. 6.2.
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