Repair and Restoration
Land clearing followed by floods can quickly erode a riverbank, taking valuable grasses and soils downstream, and allowing the sun to bake the land dry. Natural Sequence Farming techniques have been used in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia to rapidly restore eroded farms to optimum productivity..
The Natural Sequence Farming technique involves placing obstacles in the water's pathway to lessen the energy of a flood, and help the water to deposit soil and seep into the flood zone. Another technique is to quickly establish ecological succession by encouraging fast growing plants such as "weeds" (pioneer species) to grow. These can quickly stabilize the soil, place carbon into the ground, and protect the land from drying. The weeds will improve the streambeds so that trees and grasses can return, and later replace the weeds.
| Cottonwood Creek riparian area before restoration, 1988. |
Cottonwood Creek riparian area after restoration, 2002. |
Read more about this topic: Riparian Zone
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