Riparian Buffer Design Guidelines For Water Quality and Wildlife Habitat Functions on Agricultural Landscapes...

Preface:
Water quality, water quantity, and wildlife have moved to the top of the resource conservation
agenda in the Intermountain West (the study region). Why? A protracted drought, growing numbers of impaired streams, declining populations of many riparian habitat dependent wildlife species, and rapidly expanding water hungry urban and exurban growth are a few of the primary reasons.
More than 70 percent of riparian areas in the United States (Obedzinski and others 2001) and an estimated 50 percent of streams in the Great Basin (Chambers and Miller 2004)are classified as impaired to some degree. According to a 1992 US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) report, irrigated cropland is estimated to account for 89 percent of water quality impaired river miles (CFIFCD 1996). Although riparian areas constitute less than 5 percent of the land area of the United States, it is estimated that about 95 percent of native riparian vegetation has been lost (National Research Council 2002). According to a recent study by the Bureau of Land Management (USDI BLM 1998) in the Great Basin, thirteen riparian habitat obligate or
dependent birds were listed as requiring conservation action because of declining populations. Populations of over 50 percent of grassland and shrubland bird species in the same area are in decline (Paige and Ritter 1999). Many of these species are dependent in part on riparian areas for their life requisites. The five states in the application area are among the fastest growing in the country. A significant portion of new growth is occurring in riparian corridors or adjacent to lakes and reservoirs (Johnson and Toth 2004). To summarize in a phrase—critical riparian habitats are under siege!
There is no simple solution to these problems to which land managers can turn. It is now
apparent that solutions will require a creative assemblage of policies, programs, and practices
including the preservation, enhancement, restoration, or creation of riparian buffers.
Natural riparian buffers are linear patches of vegetation adjacent to streams, lakes, reservoirs, or wetlands. In the study area, they vary in width from a few feet along the margins of high elevation meadow creeks to hundreds of feet in lower elevation floodplains. Riparian plant communities are populated by species dependent on moist soils, surface water, or a high water table, and for many species, the presence of periodic flooding. The transition from riparian to upland vegetation may be abrupt or gradual depending upon site specific environmental conditions.

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