Forested Buffers Have Long Been Valued for Keeping Pollutants From Reaching Streams, But That’s Only Half the Picture
The “other half” of buffers’ water quality benefits derives from their essential role in stream ecology. Most energy to drive a healthy, vibrant stream ecosystem comes from photosynthesis, not by plants in the stream but by streamside forests.
A forested stream has three to five times the biological activity of a stream with grass on its banks.
This presentation by Watershed Restoration Manager David Wise explains how streams work and why streamside trees are critical to stream health, including a robust ability to self-cleanse. Forested streams’ ability to process and remove contaminants is the other half of the ecosystem services that buffers provide, along with many other benefits that our society relies upon.
