There is little understanding about the role eastern US forested headwater riparian areas play in protecting aquatic habitats and water quality from impacts of side slope forest harvest. To better understand this important riparian area function, we selected three sites frommanagement units with a 2-age regeneration silvicultural prescription located on the Nantahala National Forest, North Caro...

The relative importance of agricultural land retirement on water quality and aquatic-community health was investigated in the Minnesota River Basin. Eighty-two sites, with drainage areas ranging from 4.3 to 2200 km, were examined for nutrient concentrations, measures of aquatic-community health (e.g., fish index of biotic integrity [IBI] scores), and environmental factors (e.g., drainage area a...

Tropical forests around the world have been lost, mainly because of agricultural activities. Linear elements like riparian vegetation in fragmented tropical landscapes help maintain the native flora and fauna. Information about the role of riparian corridors as a reservoir of bat species, however, is scanty. We assessed the value of riparian corridors on the conservation of phyllostomid bat ass...

Riparian buffers can influence water quality in downstream lakes or rivers by buffering non-point source pollution in upstream agricultural fields. With increasing nitrogen (N) pollution in small agricultural watersheds, a major function of riparian buffers is to retain N in the soil. A series of field experiments were conducted to monitor pollutant transport in riparian buffers of small waters...

Substantial questions remain about the time required for groundwater nitrate to be reduced below 10 mg L(-1) following establishment of vegetated riparian buffers. The objective of this study was to document changes in groundwater nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N) concentrations that occurred within a few years of planting a riparian buffer. In 2000 and 2001 a buffer was planted adjacent to a first-orde...

Modern ecology often emphasizes the distinction between traditional theories of stable, environmentally structured communities and a new paradigm of disturbancedriven, nonequilibrium dynamics. However, multiple hypotheses for observed vegetation patterns have seldom been explicitly tested. We used multivariate statistics and variation partitioning methods to assess the relative influences of en...

Healthy riparian ecosystems in arid and semi-arid regions exhibit shifting patterns of vegetation in response to periodic flooding. Their conditions also depend upon the amount of grazing and other human uses. Taking advantage of these system properties, we developed and tested an approach that utilizes historical Landsat data to track changes in the patterns of greenness (Normalized Difference...

A riparian zone is the land adjacent to streams and rivers, known to be one of the most important habitats in the tropical forest. However, not many studies have been done in Peninsular Malaysia and no information particularly in lowland forest. The purpose of this study was to characterize the plant communities where two sites were chosen, Pasoh Forest Reserve (PFR) which includes two logged-o...

The impact of the construction of a large dam on riparian vegetation cover can be multifold. How the riparian vegetation cover changes at different elevation zones in response to the construction of a large dam and the subsequent impound of reservoir water is still an open question. In this study, we used satellite remote sensing data integrated with geographic information system (GIS) to monit...