Riparian Management

Aquatic plants fulfil a wide range of ecological roles, and make a substantial contribution to the structure, function and service provision of aquatic ecosystems. Given their well-documented importance in aquatic ecosystems, research into aquatic plants continues to blossom. The 14th International Symposium on Aquatic Plants, held in Edinburgh in September 2015, brought together 120 delegates from 28 countries and six continents. This special issue of Hydrobiologia includes a select number of papers on aspects of aquatic plants, covering a wide range of species, systems and issues. In this paper, we present an overview of current trends and future directions in aquatic plant research in the early twenty first century. Our understanding of aquatic plant biology, the range of scientific issues being addressed and the range of techniques available to researchers have all arguably never been greater; however, substantial challenges exist to the conservation and management of both aquatic plants and the ecosystems in which they are found. The range of countries and continents represented by conference delegates and authors of papers in the special issue illustrates the global relevance of aquatic plant research in the early twenty first century but also the many challenges that this burgeoning scientific discipline must address.

Bengal, comprising Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, is one of the world’s largest deltas, fed by two major rivers and countless smaller ones. It is thus a natural laboratory for studying riparian commons. The paper addresses aspects of local aquatic resource management, traditional and modern, and draws some tentative conclusions for current development efforts.
On the physical level, the processes that have formed and are continuing to form the delta are described. On the human level, the settlement history of the delta, including the process of trans-forming the physical landscape in order to increase agricultural productivity, is addressed. The importance of the British colonizing power in terms of enclosure of the riparian commons is discussed.
A case study from the haors (large perennial water bodies) area, based on anthropological field work in the mid-1980s and complemented by archival research, addresses the evolution and present situation in terms of local access to haors and other water bodies. Riparian commons, as they evolved, were overtaken by the expanding nation-state that established state property regimes, so-called khas land, throughout the area. Khas land, which includes haors, was open to everybody through a leasing system. In many places such khas land became, in effect, controlled by elites, thus barring access to the large majority of local people most of the year, and then only through costly sub-leases. The paper aims to understand the characteristics of present-day riparian commons in the study area through analyzing the settlement history, as well as the evolving relationship between local culture and natural endowments.
The accumulating knowledge of riparian commons in Bangladesh have potential practical implications. It can: (i) serve as models for efforts to establish viable and equitable fisheries management regimes, (ii) be a source of motivation and empowerment, and, (iii) function as a foundation and point of departure for participatory approaches. Towards this, selected large-scale water management schemes are discussed. Likewise, efforts to increase the productivity and sustainability of fisheries through involving local people and giving them use rights to local water bodies are addressed. The long-term goal of much of this work is to support or create local riparian commons.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Developing a general, predictive understanding of ecological systems requires knowing how much structural and functional relationships can cross scales and contexts. Here, we introduce the CROSSLINK project that investigates the role of forested riparian buffers in modified European landscapes by measuring a wide range of ecosystem attributes in stream-riparian networks. CROSSLINK involves replicated field measurements in four case-study basins with varying levels of human development: Norway (Oslo Fjord), Sweden (Lake Mälaren), Belgium (Zwalm River), and Romania (Argeş River). Nested within these case-study basins include multiple, independent stream-site pairs with a forested riparian buffer and unbuffered section located upstream, as well as headwater and downstream sites to show cumulative land-use impacts. CROSSLINK applies existing and bespoke methods to describe habitat conditions, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning in aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Here, we summarize...

Developing a general, predictive understanding of ecological systems requires knowing how much structural and functional relationships can cross scales and contexts. Here, we introduce the CROSSLINK project that investigates the role of forested riparian buffers in modified European landscapes by measuring a wide range of ecosystem attributes in stream-riparian networks. CROSSLINK involves replicated field measurements in four case-study basins with varying levels of human development: Norway (Oslo Fjord), Sweden (Lake Mälaren), Belgium (Zwalm River), and Romania (Argeş River). Nested within these case-study basins include multiple, independent stream-site pairs with a forested riparian buffer and unbuffered section located upstream, as well as headwater and downstream sites to show cumulative land-use impacts. CROSSLINK applies existing and bespoke methods to describe habitat conditions, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning in aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Here, we summarize the approaches used, detail protocols in supplementary materials, and explain how data is applied in an optimization framework to better manage tradeoffs in multifunctional landscapes. We then present results demonstrating the range of riparian conditions present in our case-study basins and how these environmental states influence stream ecological integrity with the commonly used macroinvertebrate Average Score Per Taxon Water 2020, 12, 1178 2 of 24 (ASPT) index. We demonstrate that a qualitative index of riparian integrity can be positively associated with stream ecological status. This introduction to the CROSSLINK project shows the potential for our replicated study with its panoply of ecosystem attributes to help guide management decisions regarding the use of forested riparian buffers in human-impacted landscapes. This knowledge is highly relevant in a time of rapid environmental change where freshwater biodiversity is increasingly under pressure from a range of human impacts that include habitat loss, pollution, and climate change.

Soil erosion due to accelerating runoff in various land cover types pose a serious threat to the long term sustainability of the fragile Himalayan landscape characterized by subsistence farming. Delimitation of high runoff zones, fostering soil erosion in the agricultural dominated watersheds is thus a necessity for watershed managers, NGO’s, urban planners, policy makers, and municipal administrations. The approach is practical, SWAT is a straightforward modeling system using GIS information. The BMP is also a very practical approach to mitigation of runoff accumulation on sub basin. A set of interviews with people familiar to the issues locally strengthened the confidence in the results. Results from this research show that terraces can reduce storm water runoff very effectively. There is a huge difference in amount of runoff after terraces are added to the simulation. Results showed a reduction of 57% in runoff volume during August 2004. If the area near the river is preserved as...

Developing a general, predictive understanding of ecological systems requires knowing how much structural and functional relationships can cross scales and contexts. Here, we introduce the CROSSLINK project that investigates the role of forested riparian buffers in modified European landscapes by measuring a wide range of ecosystem attributes in stream-riparian networks. CROSSLINK involves replicated field measurements in four case-study basins with varying levels of human development: Norway (Oslo Fjord), Sweden (Lake Mälaren), Belgium (Zwalm River), and Romania (Argeş River). Nested within these case-study basins include multiple, independent stream-site pairs with a forested riparian buffer and unbuffered section located upstream, as well as headwater and downstream sites to show cumulative land-use impacts. CROSSLINK applies existing and bespoke methods to describe habitat conditions, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning in aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Here, we summarize...

Developing a general, predictive understanding of ecological systems requires knowing how much structural and functional relationships can cross scales and contexts. Here, we introduce the CROSSLINK project that investigates the role of forested riparian buffers in modified European landscapes by measuring a wide range of ecosystem attributes in stream-riparian networks. CROSSLINK involves replicated field measurements in four case-study basins with varying levels of human development: Norway (Oslo Fjord), Sweden (Lake Mälaren), Belgium (Zwalm River), and Romania (Argeş River). Nested within these case-study basins include multiple, independent stream-site pairs with a forested riparian buffer and unbuffered section located upstream, as well as headwater and downstream sites to show cumulative land-use impacts. CROSSLINK applies existing and bespoke methods to describe habitat conditions, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning in aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Here, we summarize...

Effective Mar. 9, 2015, Chinese container cargo carrier HANJIN stopped commercial shipping calls at the Port of Portland (PoP) Terminal 6.  Philippines-based ICTIS, which manages day-to-day operations at  POP, has said it will abandon PoP, leaving the Willamette Valley and Oregon entirely without access to  a functioning deep-water port facility.  WHAT NOW?

The answer for the entire Columbia River Watershed region lies in refurbishment of the neglected facilities of the Port of Astoria,  and the full development of the Columbia harbor at Astoria,  to its vast commercial shipping port  potential. 
Read the report: ASTORIA ONLY

Soil erosion due to accelerating runoff in various land cover types pose a serious threat to the long term sustainability of the fragile Himalayan landscape characterized by subsistence farming. Delimitation of high runoff zones, fostering soil erosion in the agricultural dominated watersheds is thus a necessity for watershed managers, NGO’s, urban planners, policy makers, and municipal administrations. The approach is practical, SWAT is a straightforward modeling system using GIS information. The BMP is also a very practical approach to mitigation of runoff accumulation on sub basin. A set of interviews with people familiar to the issues locally strengthened the confidence in the results. Results from this research show that terraces can reduce storm water runoff very effectively. There is a huge difference in amount of runoff after terraces are added to the simulation. Results showed a reduction of 57% in runoff volume during August 2004. If the area near the river is preserved as a buffer strip and a tree cover is maintained around it then it minimizes the effect surface runoff. The effect of riparian buffer is modeled in SWAT and the results show about 6% decrease in surface runoff when a buffer of 500 m is applied around the main river only. This study has drawn a location map of BMP implementations of most meaningful impact for the rehabilitation and safeguard of rivers, streams, lakes and wetlands around the river Siran in the Mansehra Tehsil, Pakistan.

Forest streams, lakes, and other water bodies create unique conditions along their margins that control and influence transfers of energy, nutrients, and sediments between ‘aquatic and terrestrial systems. These riparian areas are among the most critical features of the landscape because they contain a rich diversity of plants and animals and help to maintain water quality and terrestrial and aquatic habitats (Hunter 1990; Gregory et al. 1991). These fragile areas are easily disturbed, and caution is needed whenever forest management occurs within them. Riparian areas are often linear features of variable width that have high edge-to-area ratios but generally occupy only a small part of the landscape. However, the linear nature of riparian areas means that resource managers and loggers, either through active management or the need to gain access to a site, will invariably come into contact with these features. Therefore, the proper management tools are needed to maintain the functio...

Developing a general, predictive understanding of ecological systems requires knowing how much structural and functional relationships can cross scales and contexts. Here, we introduce the CROSSLINK project that investigates the role of forested riparian buffers in modified European landscapes by measuring a wide range of ecosystem attributes in stream-riparian networks. CROSSLINK involves replicated field measurements in four case-study basins with varying levels of human development: Norway (Oslo Fjord), Sweden (Lake Mälaren), Belgium (Zwalm River), and Romania (Argeş River). Nested within these case-study basins include multiple, independent stream-site pairs with a forested riparian buffer and unbuffered section located upstream, as well as headwater and downstream sites to show cumulative land-use impacts. CROSSLINK applies existing and bespoke methods to describe habitat conditions, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning in aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Here, we summarize...

Developing a general, predictive understanding of ecological systems requires knowing how much structural and functional relationships can cross scales and contexts. Here, we introduce the CROSSLINK project that investigates the role of forested riparian buffers in modified European landscapes by measuring a wide range of ecosystem attributes in stream-riparian networks. CROSSLINK involves replicated field measurements in four case-study basins with varying levels of human development: Norway (Oslo Fjord), Sweden (Lake Mälaren), Belgium (Zwalm River), and Romania (Argeş River). Nested within these case-study basins include multiple, independent stream-site pairs with a forested riparian buffer and unbuffered section located upstream, as well as headwater and downstream sites to show cumulative land-use impacts. CROSSLINK applies existing and bespoke methods to describe habitat conditions, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning in aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Here, we summarize...