Abstract
Streams interact with the landscape through flooding events, erosion, and deposition processes and provide valuable subsidies to riparian zones. Meanwhile, the cumulative effects of disturbances and land use practices within a watershed affect water resources downstream. Forests have long been acclaimed for their rain-bringing capacity and ability to purify water resources. However, less well recognized is the linkage between a forest and increased evapotranspiration and thus lower water yield. Often a critical step to successfully restoring streams and riparian zones is to recreate the hydrological connectivity including a site-specific, realistic flooding regime. Integration of local citizens with land managers and conservationists greatly enhances the potential for long-term success of restoration activities.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Abbreviations
- OM:
-
organic matter
- DOC:
-
dissolved organic carbon
- POC:
-
particulate organic carbon
- NPP:
-
net primary productivity
- ANPP:
-
aboveground net primary productivity
- CRNWR:
-
Cache River National Wildlife Refuge
- NTU:
-
nephelometric turbidity units
- N:
-
nitrogen
- P:
-
phosphorus
- NOx :
-
nitrate plus nitrite
- TN:
-
total nitrogen
- OC:
-
organic carbon
References
Alabyan AM, Chalov RS (1998) Types of river channel patterns and their natural controls. Earth Surf Process Landf 23:467–474
Allan JD (2004) Landscapes and riverscapes: the influence of land use on stream ecosystems. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 35:257–284
Allen AE, Santana-Michel SJ, Arrona CO et al (2010) Integrating ecological and ethnobotanical priorities into riparian restoration. Ecol Restor 28(3):377–388
Amoros C, Bornette G (2002) Connectivity and biocomplexity in waterbodies of riverine floodplains. Freshw Biol 477:61–776
Anderson CJ, Mitsch WJ (2008) Influence of flood connectivity on bottomland hardwood forest productivity in central Ohio. Ohio J Sci 108(2):2–8
Andréassian V (2004) Waters and forests: from historical controversy to scientific debate. J Hydrol 291:1–27
Austin BJ, Strauss EA (2011) Nitrification and denitrification response to varying periods of desiccation and inundation in a western Kansas stream. Hydrobiology 658:183–195
Baldwin DS, Mitchell AM (2000) The effects of drying and re-flooding on the sediment and soil nutrient dynamics of lowland river-floodplain systems: a synthesis. Regul Rivers Res Manag 16:457–467
Bayley PB (1995) Understanding large river-floodplain ecosystems. BioScience 45(3):153–158
Binkley D, Brown TC (1993) Management impacts on water quality of forests and rangelands. General Technical Report RM-239. U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Fort Collins, CO
Bolstad PV, Swank WT (1997) Cumulative impacts of land use on water quality in a southern Appalachian watershed. J Am Water Resour 33:519–533
Bosch JM, Hewlett JD (1982) A review of catchment experiments to determine the effect of vegetation changes on water yield and evapotranspiration. J Hydrol 55:3–23
Brinson M, Verhoeven J (1999) Riparian forests. In: Hunter ML (ed) Maintaining biodiversity in forest ecosystems. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Brooks KN, Ffolliott PF, Gregersen HM et al (2003) Hydrology and the management of watersheds, 3rd edn. Blackwell Publishing, Ames
Bruijnzeel LA (2004) Hydrological functions of tropical forests: not seeing the soil for the trees? Agric Ecosyst Environ 104:185–228
Calder I, Amezaga J, Aylward B et al (2004) Forests and water policies. The need to reconcile public and science perspectives. Geol Acta 2(2):157–166
Chazdon RL (2008) Beyond deforestation: restoring forests and ecosystem services on degraded lands. Science 320:1458–1460
Chesapeake Bay Program (2009) Bay restoration. http://www.chesapeakebay.net/bayrestoration.aspx?menuitem=13989. Accessed 13 July 2009
Clawson RG, Lockaby BG, Rummer B (2001) Changes in production and nutrient cycling across a wetness gradient within a floodplain forest. Ecosystem 4:126–138
Conner WH, Day JW Jr (1976) Productivity and composition of a baldcypress-water tupelo site and a bottomland hardwood site in a Louisiana swamp. Am J Bot 63:1354–1364
de la Crétaz AL, Barten PK (2007) Land use effects on streamflow and water quality in the Northeastern United States. CRC Press, Boca Raton
DellaSala DA, Martin A, Spivak R et al (2003) A citizen’s call for ecological forest restoration: forest restoration principles and criteria. Ecol Restor 21(1):14–23
Douglass JE, Swank WT (1972) Streamflow modification through management of eastern forests. USDA Forest Service Research Paper: SE-94, Asheville, NC
Downs PW, Kondolf GM (2002) Post-project appraisals in adaptive management of river channel restoration. Environ Manag 29(4):477–496
Farley KA, Jobbágy EG, Jackson RB (2005) Effects of afforestation on water yield: a global synthesis with implications for policy. Glob Change Biol 11:1565–1576
Fisher DS, Steiner JL, Endale DM et al (2000) The relationship of land use practices to surface water quality in the Upper Oconee watershed of Georgia. For Ecol Manag 128:39–48
Ford CR, Laseter SH, Swank WT et al (2011) Can forest management be used to sustain water-based ecosystem services in the face of climate change? Ecol Appl 21(6):2049–2067
Forest Guild (2009) Forest Guild success stories. http://www.forestguild.org/success.html . Accessed 7 July 2009
Gergel SE, Dixon MD, Turner MG (2002) Consequences of human-altered floods: levees, floods, and floodplain forests along the Wisconsin River. Ecol Appl 12(6):1755–1770
Glazebrook HS, Robertson AI (1999) The effect of flooding and flood timing on leaf litter breakdown rates and nutrient dynamics in a river red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) forest. Austr J Ecol 24:625–635
Groffman PM, Blain DJ, Band LE et al (2003) Down by the riverside: urban riparian ecology. Front Ecol Environ 1(6):315–321
Groves T, Hondorp C (2007) Low impact development: concepts and considerations. http://www.michiganlakeinfo.com/PermaLink,guid,6a215927-af04-4263-8484-21eb4f3810be.aspx. Accessed 15 July 2009
Hibbert AR (1967) Forest treatment effects on water yield. In: Sopper WE, Hull HW (eds) Forest hydrology: proceedings of a National Science Foundation advanced science. Pergamon Press, New York
Holl KD, Crone EE, Schultz CB (2003) Landscape restoration: moving from generalities to methodologies. BioScience 53(5):491–502
Hughes FMR (1997) Floodplain biogeomorphology. Prog Phys Geogr 21(4):501–529
Hughes FMR, Adams WM, Muller E et al (2001) The importance of different scale processes for the restoration of floodplain woodlands. Regul Rivers Res Manag 17:325–345
Hughes FMR, Colston A, Mountford JO (2005) Restoring riparian ecosystems: the challenge of accommodating variability and designing restoration trajectories. Ecol Soc 10(1):12
Hupp CR, Pierce AR, Noe GB (2009) Floodplain geomorphic processes and environmental impacts of human alteration along coastal plain river. Wetlands 29(2):413–429
Jackson CR, Pringle CM (2010) Hydrologic connectivity in intensively developed landscapes. BioScience 60:37–46
Jackson RB, Jobbágy EG, Avissar R et al (2005) Trading water for carbon with biological carbon sequestration. Science 310:1944–1947
Junk WJ, Bayley PB, Sparks RE (1989) The flood pulse concept in river-floodplain systems. In: Dodge DP (ed) Proceedings of the international large river symposium. Canadian Special Publications of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Ottawa
Kondolf GM, Boulton AJ, O’Daniel S et al (2006) Process-based ecological river restoration: visualizing three-dimensional connectivity and dynamic vectors to discover lost linkages. Ecol Soc 11(2):5
Kuuluvainen T, Aapala K, Ahlroth P et al (2002) Principles of ecological restoration of boreal forested ecosystems: Finland as an example. Silva Fennica 36(1):409–422
Lamb D, Erskine PD, Parrotta JA (2005) Restoration of degraded tropical forest landscapes. Science 310(5754):1628–1632
Lambert CP, Walling DE (1987) Floodplain sedimentation: a preliminary investigation of contemporary deposition within the lower reaches of the River Culm, Devon, UK. Geogr Ann 69A(3–4):393–404
Lockaby BG (2009) Floodplain ecosystems of the Southeast: linkages between forests and people. Wetl 29(2):407–412
Lockaby BG, Murphy AL, Somers GL (1996) Hydroperiod influences on nutrient dynamics in decomposing litter of a floodplain forest. Soil Sci Soc Am J 60(4):1267–1272
Lockaby BG, Conner WH, Mitchell J (2008) Floodplains. In: Jørgensen SE, Faith BD (eds) Ecosystems. Vol 2 of Encyclopedia of ecology. Elsevier, Oxford
Maginnis S, Jackson W (2008) Restoring forest landscapes. http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/restoring_forest_landscapes.pdf. Accessed 13 July 2009
Megonigal JP, Conner WH, Kroeger S et al (1997) Aboveground production in southeastern floodplain forests: a test of the subsidy-stress hypothesis. Ecology 78(2):370–384
Meitzen KM (2009) Lateral channel migration effects on riparian forest structure and composition, Congaree River, South Carolina, USA. Wetl 29(2):465–475
Mengistu T, Teketay D, Hulten H et al (2005) The role of enclosures in the recovery of woody vegetation in degraded dryland hillsides of central and northern Ethiopia. J Arid Environ 60:259–281
Mitsch W, Gosselink J (2007) Wetlands, 4th edn. Wiley, Hoboken
Moon KH, Park DK (2004) The role and activities of NGOs of reforestation in the northeast Asian region. For Ecol Manag 201:75–81
Morozova GS (2005) A review of Holocene avulsions of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and possible effects on the evolution of civilizations in lower Mesopotamia. Geoarchaeology 20(4):401–423
Murray AB, Paola C (2003) Modelling the effect of vegetation on channel pattern in bedload rivers. Earth Surf Process Landf 28(2):131–143
Nagy RC, Lockaby BG, Helms B et al (2011) Water resources and land use and cover in a humid region: the southeastern United States. J Environ Qual 40:867–878
Naiman RJ, Décamps H (1997) The ecology of interfaces: riparian zones. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 28:621–658
Naiman RJ, Décamps H, McClain ME (2005) Riparia: ecology, conservation, and management of streamside communities. Elsevier Academic Press, Burlington
Nanson GC, Croke JC (1992) A genetic classification of floodplains. Geomorphology 4:459–486
Neckles HA, Neill C (1994) Hydrologic control of litter decomposition in seasonally flooded prairie marshes. Hydrobiology 286(3):155–165
Newson M (1994) Hydrology and the river environment. Oxford University Press Inc., New York
Nilsson C, Svedmark M (2002) Basic principles and ecological consequences of changing water regimes: riparian plant communities. Environ Manag 30(4):468–480
Odum EP, Finn JT, Franz EH (1979) Perturbation theory and the subsidy-stress gradient. BioScience 29(6):349–352
Odum WE, Odum EP, Odum HT (1995) Nature’s pulsing paradigm. Estuaries 18(4):547–555
Olivera F, DeFee BB (2007) Urbanization and its effect on runoff in the Whiteoak Bayou watershed, Texas. J Am Water Resour Assoc 43:170–182
Paul MJ, Meyer JL (2001) Streams in the urban landscape. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 32:333–365
Pizarro R, Araya S, Jordán C et al (2006) The effects of changes in vegetative cover on river flows in the Purapel river basin of central Chile. J Hydrol 327:249–257
Poff NL, Allan JD, Bain MB et al (1997) The natural flow regime: a paradigm for river conservation and restoration. BioScience 47(11):769–784
Rayburg S, Thoms M, Lenon E (2006) Unraveling the physical template of a terminal flood-plain-wetland sediment storage system. Sediment dynamics and the hydromorphology of fluvial systems (Proceedings of a symposium held in Dundee, UK, July 2006). IAHS Publication 306
Reid LM (1993) Research and cumulative watershed effects. General Technical Report PSW-GTR-141-WWW. Albany, CA. Pacific Southwest Research Station, U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service
Richards K, Brasington J, Hughes F (2002) Geomorphic dynamics of floodplains: ecological implications and a potential modeling strategy. Freshw Biol 47:559–579
Richardson CJ, Pahl JW (2005) The Duke Forest stormwater improvement and wetlands restoration project: final report to the North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund and the North Carolina Ecosystem Enhancement Program. http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/wetland/CWMTF05.pdf. Accessed 20 June 2009
Robinson M, Cognard-Plancq A-L, Cosandey C et al (2003) Studies of the impact of forests on peak flows and baseflows: a European perspective. For Ecol Manag 186:85–97
Rodrigues RR, Lima RAF, Gandolfi S et al (2009) On the restoration of high diversity forests: 30 years of experience in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Biol Conserv 142:1242–1251
Rood SB, Heinz-Milne S (1989) Abrupt downstream forest decline following river damming in southern Alberta. Can J Bot 67:1744–1749
Rose S, Peters NE (2001) Effects of urbanization on streamflow in the Atlanta area (Georgia, USA): a comparative approach. Hydrol Process 15:1441–1457
Salo J, Kalliola R, Häkkinen I et al (1986) River dynamics and the diversity of the Amazon lowland forest. Nature 322:254–258
Schlesinger WH (1991) Biogeochemistry: an analysis of global change. Academic Press Inc., San Diego
Schneider RL, Sharitz RR (1988) Hydrochory and regeneration in a bald cypress-water tupelo swamp forest. Ecology 69(4):1055–1063
Schoonover JE, Lockaby BG, Helms B (2006) Impacts of land cover on stream hydrology in the west Georgia piedmont, USA. J Environ Qual 35:2123–2131
Scott DF, Prinsloo FW (2008) Longer-term effects of pine and eucalypt plantations on streamflow. Water Resour Res 44:W00A08. doi:10.1029/2007WR006781
Sharif M, Balbach H (2008) Water quality and sediment monitoring program at Ft. Benning, Ga. IPR Presentation to Natural Resources Branch, USCOE. Ft. Benning, GA
Sheil D, Murdiyarso D (2009) How forests attract rain: an examination of a new hypothesis. BioScience 59(4):341–347
Stanturf JA, Gardiner E, Warren M (2003) Restoring forested wetland ecosystems. In: Holland M, Blood E (eds) Achieving sustainable freshwater systems. Island Press, Washington, DC
Steiger J, Tabacchi E, Dufour S et al (2005) Hydrogeomorphic processes affecting riparian habitat within alluvial channel-floodplain river systems: a review for the temperate zone. River Res Appl 21:719–737
Stromberg JC (2001) Restoration of riparian vegetation in the south-western United States: importance of flow regimes and fluvial dynamism. J Arid Environ 49:17–34
Stromberg JC, Patten DT (1990) Riparian vegetation instream flow requirements: a case study from a diverted stream in the eastern Sierra Nevada, California, USA. Environ Manag 14(2):185–194
Sun G, Zhou G, Zhang Z et al (2006) Potential water yield reduction due to forestation across China. J Hydrol 328:548–558
Thoms MC (2003) Floodplain-river ecosystems: lateral connections and the implications of human interference. Geomorphology 56:335–349
Tockner K, Pennetzdorfer D, Reiner N et al (1999) Hydrological connectivity and the exchange of organic matter and nutrients in a dynamic river-floodplain system (Danube, Austria). Freshw Biol 41:521–535
Toda Y, Ikeda S, Kumagai K et al (2005) Effects of flood flow on flood plain soil and riparian vegetation in a gravel river. J Hydraulic Eng 131(11):950–960
Trabucco A, Zomer RJ, Bossio DA et al (2008) Climate change mitigation through afforestation/reforestation: a global analysis of hydrologic impacts with four case studies. Agric Ecosyst Environ 126:81–97
Trimble SW (2008) Man-induced soil erosion on the southern Piedmont, 2nd edn. Soil and Water Conservation Society, Ankeny
UNEP (2009) Global partnership on forest landscape restoration. http://www.unep-wcmc.org/forest/restoration/globalpartnership/. Accessed 30 June 2009
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Rhode Island (2011) American recovery and reinvestment act (ARRA) emergency watershed protection program- floodplain easements. http://www.ri.nrcs.usda.gov/news/successstories/ARRA_EWP_Floodplain_Easements.html. Accessed 30 Mar 2012
Walling DE, He Q (1998) The spatial variability of overbank sedimentation on river floodplains. Geomorphology 24:209–223
Weston NB, Hollibaugh JT, Joye SB (2009) Population growth away from the coastal zone: thirty years of land use change and nutrient export in the Altamaha River, GA. Sci Total Environ 407(10):3347–3356
Wolman MG, Leopold LB (1957) River flood plains: some observations on their formation. Physiographic and hydraulic studies of rivers. Geological Survey Professional Paper 282-C, US Geological Survey, Reston, VA
Zhang L, Dawes WR, Walker GR (1999) Predicting the effect of vegetation changes on catchment average water balance. Technical Report 99/12, Cooperative Research Center for Catchment Hydrology, CSIRO Land and Water, Canberra
Zheng H, Ouyang Z, Xu W et al (2008) Variation of carbon storage by different reforestation types in the hilly red soil region of southern China. For Ecol Manag 255:1113–1121
Acknowledgments
Funding for this research was provided by Auburn University’s Center for Forest Sustainability.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Nagy, R.C., Lockaby, B.G. (2012). Hydrologic Connectivity of Landscapes and Implications for Forest Restoration. In: Stanturf, J., Lamb, D., Madsen, P. (eds) Forest Landscape Restoration. World Forests, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5326-6_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5326-6_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-5325-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-5326-6
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)