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Saving Your Streambanks
Saving Your Streambanks
What is a Riparian Buffer Zone?
What is a Riparian Buffer Zone?
Riparian buffer is a fancy name for the area of land located along the edge of a waterway that acts as the transition between the water body and upland uses like manicured lawns, parking lots, and agriculture. Riparian buffers are usually planted with a combination of fast and slow growing trees, shrubs, grasses, and perennials. These planted buffers help to hold the soil along the streambanks in place and prevent erosion, filter pollutants from upstream runoff and use up nutrients, shade and cool the water, provide habitat, slow the flow of water, and help reduce flood damage.
Water quality benefits start at just 10 feet of buffer width from the streambank and improve with recommended widths of 15-25 ft, up to 100 ft as space allows.
Learn more about the benefits of Streamside Buffers with these fun videos:
Learn more about the benefits of Streamside Buffers with these fun videos:
Riparian Management
Riparian Management
Check out this video from Biodiversity Landowners' Guide that shows us some of the benefits of riparian zones on the farm
Stream Restoration
Stream Restoration
Check out this video from Baltimore County and learn more about streambank erosion and stream restoration
Erosion & Stream Table Demo:
Erosion & Stream Table Demo:
Streams and rivers are made up of the bed and banks, the floodplain, water, sediment, and living organisms. Erosion is the removal of soil and other material like rocks and vegetation from streambanks and is a naturally occurring process that is increased due to human activity. Changes in land use can cause streambanks to erode at much faster rates than those seen in a natural system.
Check out the Little River Stream Table demonstration in the adjacent video.
Check out the Little River Stream Table demonstration in the adjacent video.
University of Kentucky Resources:
University of Kentucky Resources:
The University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment offers an online course for those interested in becoming a Certified Backyard Stream Steward. This online course is comprised of 12 modules designed to help homeowners understand how to protect and manage their backyard streams.
For those interested in learning more but who are not ready for the online course, the Backyard Streams website offers links to relevant publications and webinars. These resources are designed to help homeowners with backyard streams appreciate the resource, protect personal property, and improve water quality and backyard stream habitats.
Click here to find your local Extension Office.
Click here to find your local Extension Office.
KYH2O Podcast Episode on Riparian Buffers!
KYH2O Podcast Episode on Riparian Buffers!
Student Activity for Riparian Buffers:
Student Activity for Riparian Buffers:
Does it Meander?
Does it Meander?
This activity lets students demonstrate the greater water retention capacity of a healthy riparian system. Healthy streams generally have a shallow gradient and numerous meanders. Water slowly moves along, allowing it to soak deep into the banks, which act like giant sponges. They release water during periods of low waterflow, providing a buffer to the riparian-dependant plants and animals.
Materials:
Meauring cup
several sponges
a cookie sheet
a pan wide enough to hold the edge of the cookie sheet
water
Again, gradually pour a cup of water down the trough and measure the amount that makes it to the pan. This time there should be much less water in the pan, because the healthy riparian system has soaked up water into its banks. You can further experiment with the angle of the cookie sheet to simulate the effects of different stream gradients.
Step 1: Gather the materials.
Step 2: Simulate an unhealthy riparian area by laying dry sponges end to end in two rows the length of the cookie sheet, with about 5 cm of space between the rows.
Step 3: Gradually pour a cup of water down the trough between the sponge rows. Some water should seep into the sponges, but most will wash into the pan.
Step 4: Measure how much water is in the pan.
Step 5: Now lay the pre-trimmed dry sponges in two parallel rows, but this time arrange them in a series of several curves. (Cut and piece wedges of sponge beforehand to create solid banks.)
Step 6: Again, gradually pour a cup of water down the trough and measure the amount that makes it to the pan. This time there should be much less water in the pan, because the healthy riparian system has soaked up water into its banks.
This work was funded in part by a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under §319(h) of the Clean Water Act.
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