Storm flow response to road building and partial cutting in small streams of northern California

Ziemer, Robert R.

doi:10.1029/wr017i004p00907

Cited by 75 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Roads do not appear to affect annual water yields, and no studies have evaluated their effects on low flows. In some studies, roads produced no detectable change in flow timing or magnitude (Rothacher 1965, Wright and others 1990, Ziemer 1981, but in other basins, average time to storm peak advanced and average peak magnitude increased after road building for at least some storm sizes (Harr and others 1975, Jones and Grant 1996, Thomas and Megahan 1998. In a study in Idaho, peak stormflow magnitude increased in one basin and decreased in another after road building, an effect the authors attribute to subsurface flow interception by roads and desynchronization of delivery of water to the basin outlet (King and Tennyson 1984).…”

Section: Hydrologic Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of those studies that have attempted to look at the hydrologic behavior of roads, most have been part of small (typically 0.3 to 2 square miles) watershed experiments, where roads were a component of the experimental treatment, which often included other silvicultural practices. Key studies and locales of this type include those by Rothacher (1965Rothacher ( , 1971Rothacher ( , 1973, Harr and McCorison (1979), Harr and others (1975), Jones and Grant (1996), and Thomas and Megahan (1998) in western Oregon; Ziemer (1981Ziemer ( , 1998 and Wright and others (1990) in northern California; King and Tennyson (1984) in central Idaho; Reinhart and others (1963), Hewlett and Helvey (1970), others (1982, 1988) in the southern Appalachians, Helvey and Kochenderfer (1988) in the central Appalachians;and Hornbeck (1973) and Hornbeck and others (1997) in the northern Appalachians. Very few studies have focused on the hydrologic behavior of roads alone; in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains, maximum measurement periods during which roads were the only treatment range from 1 to 4 years (Wemple 1994).…”

Section: Hydrologic Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Forest roads: a synthesis of scientific information.

Gucinski¹,

Furniss²,

Ziemer³

et al. 2001

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125

108

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Effects of roads in forested ecosystems span direct physical and ecological ones (such as geomorphic and hydrologic effects), indirect and landscape level ones (such as effects on aquatic habitat, terrestrial vertebrates, and biodiversity conservation), and socioeconomic ones (such as passive-use value, economic effects on development and range management). Road effects take place in the contexts of environmental settings, their history, and the state of engineering practices, and must be evaluated in those contexts for best management approaches.Keywords: Roads, roadless areas, forest ecosystems, geomorphology, hydrology, habitat fragmentation, biodiversity, nonmarket values, heritage values, economic development, grazing, mineral resources, fire. AbstractRoads are a vital component of civilization. They provide access for people to study, enjoy, and commune with forested wildlands and to extract an array of resources from natural and modified ecosystems. Roads have well-documented, short-and long-term effects on the environment that have become highly controversial, because of the value society now places on unroaded wildlands and because of wilderness conflicts with resource extraction.The approach taken in this report is to identify known and hypothesized road-related issues and to summarize the scientific information available about them. The report identifies links among processes and effects that suggest both potential compatible uses and potential problems and risks. Generalizations are made where appropriate, but roads issues and road science usually cannot be effectively separated from the specific ecologic, economic, social, and public lands management contexts in which roads exist or are proposed.Across a forest or river basin, the access needs, economic dependencies, landscape sensitivities, downstream beneficial uses of water, and so on can be reasonably well defined, but these relations tend to differ greatly from place to place. An effective synthesis of road issues draws local experts together to thoroughly evaluate road and access benefits, problems and risks, and to inform managers about what roads may be needed, for how long, for what purposes, and at what benefits and costs to the agency and society.Road effects and uses may be somewhat arbitrarily divided into beneficial and detrimental. The largest group of beneficial variables relates to access. We identified access-related benefits as harvest of timber and special forest products, grazing, mining, recreation, fire control, land management, research and monitoring, access to private inholdings, restoration, local community critical needs, subsistence, and the cultural value of the roads themselves. Nonaccess-related benefits include edge habitat, fire breaks, absence of economic alternatives for land management, and jobs associated with building and maintaining the roads.Undesirable consequences include adverse effects on hydrology and geomorphic features (such as debris slides and sedimentation), habitat fragmentation, predation, road ki...

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Section: Hydrologic Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Hydrologic Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest roads: a synthesis of scientific information.

Gucinski¹,

Furniss²,

Ziemer³

et al. 2001

Self Cite

125

108

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Gaging stations were installed at the downstream ends of the study reaches of each stream and operated continuously over the high runoff seasons from 1979 to 1986. North Fork Caspar Creek station has operated since 1962 [Ziemer, 1981].…”

Section: Sediment Transportmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sediment transport and resulting deposition in spawning gravels, north coastal California

Lisle¹

1989

Water Resources Research

288

257

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Incubating salmonid eggs in streambeds are often threatened by deposition of fine sediment within the gravel. To relate sedimentation of spawning gravel beds to sediment transport, infiltration of fine sediment (<2 mm in diameter) into clean gravel beds, bed material size distributions, scour-fill depths, and sediment transport during 10 storm flow events were measured in three streams of north coastal California. Although suspended sediment comprised most (75-94%) of the clastic load during storm flows, bed load material (0.25-2 mm) accounted for most (70-78%) of the fine sediment accumulated in experimental gravel implanted in the streambeds. Sand trapped in the interstices of the top several centimeters formed a seal that impeded deeper deposition of very fine sand and finer material. The seal was responsible at least in part for a decrease in the rate of fine-sediment accumulation with increasing cumulative bed load transport. Areas of the streambeds commonly scoured or filled 0.1 m or more during storm flows, and thus scour and fill commonly created a sandy layer at least as thick as the seal formed by sediment infiltration. Scour could erode eggs laid in the bed and expose deeper levels of the bed to infiltration by fine sediment, but at the same time could allow fine sediment to be winnowed away. Great temporal and spatial variation in sedimentation in these streams suggests that individual storms of moderate size pose a threat to eggs in many but not all areas selected by fish for spawning.

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“…2A) Past analyses of South Fork peakflows compared pre-logging correlations to North Fork peaks with those from between the onset of logging and either 1 (Ziemer 1981) or 2 years (Wright et al 1990) after logging ended, thus including 3 years of logging. No significant increase was found for moderate to large peaks.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research results from seminal paired watershed studies in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) show that timber harvest activities do affect annual water yield (Harris 1973, Rothacher 1970, Wright et al 1990), peak flows (Harr et al 1975, Jones and Grant 1996, Rothacher 1973, Ziemer 1981, and sediment yield (Brown and Krygier 1971, Fredriksen 1970, Lewis 1998). These results, for the most part, chronicle the environmental impact associated with a bygone era.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%