Riparian Revegetation : An Account of 2 Decades of Experience in the Arid Southwest

Riparian (streamside) vegetation has been in decline throughout the southwestern United States for decades. While efforts to revitalize these disappearing systems are common, many early efforts were unsuccessful largely because of the lack of knowledge relative to the tolerance limits of the various species to ecological variables such as soil moisture, depth to the water table, and salt load found in the soil. This book provides information concerning tolerance levels for such typical riparian species as cottonwood, willow, and honey and screwbean mesquite.Riparian vegetation is often damaged by activities such as dam building or development along streams. The law provides for those inflicting these damages to be held responsible to mitigate for the losses'most frequently by planting a stand equivalent or larger in size to that destroyed. But the question of what can be expected from a responsibly done revegetation project in terms of growth and survival at various times after planting is still largely undetermined. One of the aims of this book is to provide guidelines indicating the range of variation that can be expected to occur among reasonably well-done revegetation projects.Of course, these mitigation efforts should result in a habitat that is at the minimum, equivalent in wildlife value to the habitat that was destroyed. The authors demonstrate with data from many projects that revegetation (mitigation) projects that meet reasonable requirements may not be successful in creating a habitat that has a wildlife value as good as the habitat that was destroyed. According to the authors this is related to the fact that many riparian systems have become so degraded through the activities of man that native plant species fail to develop well, even on projects conscientiously executed.The authors base their findings on fulltime work done on several arid land systems. Their work spans nearly three decades and includes data on thousands of individual plants planted on dozens of projects.For many years the authors have seen a need for a book that would cover the following points in an overall context encompassing riparian revegetation in the arid Southwest:1.Habitat classification and evaluation of use by wildlife.2.Develop goals for revegetation compatible with the objective of re-establishing native vegetation while enhancing wildlife.3.An evaluation of the habitat of several riparian systems in the arid Southwest in terms of their suitability for native riparian species.4.Determination of tolerance levels with respect to a variety of variables such as salinity and soil types for major riparian plants.5.Develop a general model for revegetating areas broad enough to simultaneously accomplish the practical goal of re-establishing native vegetation while encompassing the need for acquiring more experimental data.6.Develop mitigation goals and requirements relative to plant height, condition, survival of plants in revegetation projects and the length of the monitoring period.7.Development of new technology suitable for restoration including reclamation of large (400 ha or larger) areas.These points and more are covered in ?Riparian Revegetation'.Anderson, Bertin W. is the author of 'Riparian Revegetation : An Account of 2 Decades of Experience in the Arid Southwest', published 2004 under ISBN 9780970850409 and ISBN 0970850409.