Vegetation Management Projects

Effects of Vegetation Management on Native Plants and Animals

jeff baldwin

February 2012-present

New riparian management techniques are focused on promoting native species diversity and maintaining flood capacity. These techniques include removing and controlling non-native blackberry, active restoration of native plant species, limbing the lower branches of existing trees to promote taller, shadier canopies and to allow maximum  flow during floods. Do these techniques meet the multiple objectives of controlling floods and increasing the abundance of native species? What are the effects on other organisms (e.g., birds and fish)? Can successional processes be ‘fast-forwarded’ to result in taller, shadier, riparian communities with an understory dominated by native plant cover?

Vegetation measurements of this project are part of an SCWA-SSU contract to Caroline Christian (Department of Environmental Studies and Planning).

[an error occurred while processing this directive]