Stream and Riparian Ecology

Water is a valuable resource for humans (direct consumption, power, irrigation, industry) and provides essential habitat for many organisms, including highly valued fish species such as salmonids. Aquatic habitat is influenced by processes active not only in the near-stream (riparian) zone (e.g., provision of shade) but also over the entire watershed (e.g., hillslope hydrologic processes that control the supply of water or the generation of landslides). Processes at both of these scales, and others, can be profoundly influenced by forestry activities, as described in more detail in Chapter 7 (“The Effects of Forest Disturbance on Hydrologic Processes and Watershed Response”), Chapter 9 (“Forest Management Effects on Hillslope Processes”), and Chapter 0 (“Channel Geomorphology: Fluvial Forms, Processes, and Forest Management Effects”). The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of stream and riparian ecology in British Columbia. It describes the ecological structure and function of streams and the associated riparian zones, and the interactions between them. Several topics in this chapter are integrative; therefore, some topics are addressed only briefly but references are provided for more in-depth coverage. For additional information on stream and riparian ecology, see Giller and Malmqvist (998), Naiman and Bilby (editors, 998), Naiman et al. (2005), Allan and Castillo (2007), and Richardson and Danehy (2007). Stream and Riparian Ecology Chapter 3