Buffering the buffer

Abstract

Riparian buffer strips are a widely accepted tool for helping to sustain aquatic ecosystems and to protect downstream resources and values in forested areas, but controversy persists over how wide a buffer strip is necessary. The physical integrity of stream channels is expected to be sustained if the characteristics and rates of tree fall along buffered reaches are similar to those in undisturbed forests. Although most tree-fall-related sediment and woody debris inputs to Caspar Creek are generated by trees falling from within a tree's height of the channel, about 30 percent of those tree falls are triggered by trees falling from upslope of the contributing tree, suggesting that the core zone over which natural rates of tree fall would need to be sustained is wider than the one-tree-height's-width previously assumed.

Parent Publication

• Proceedings of the conference on coastal watersheds: the Caspar Creek story. May 6, 1998, Ukiah, California

Citation

Reid, Leslie M.; Hilton, Sue. 1998. Buffering the buffer. In: Ziemer, Robert R., technical coordinator. Proceedings of the conference on coastal watersheds: the Caspar Creek story, 6 May 1998; Ukiah, California. General Tech. Rep. PSW GTR-168. Albany, California: Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture: 71-80