🚀 go-pugleaf

So where are you?  
The point of buffers has always been more than shade protection. Its a
minimum space between heavy equipment activity and the water. Its often
the only source of large wood for fish habitat. The tangle of blow down
is not conducive to human travel.  Diversity and edge effect are
improved with streamside buffers.  Even horizontal buffer strips are an
improvement over no buffers.  As far as effective buffer widths go, it
depends on what aspect of habitat you're looking at. With favorable
topography, say a deep north-south oriented valley, shading is good all
day. No buffer needed at all. Of course if you want other values such as
physical habitat features, LWD or roughness the buffer starts getting
bigger. At about 5 to 7 tree lengths you begin to get interior stand
characteristics, handy if there are non-fish species to be concerned
about and very convenient when the stream's flood regime is unstable.
Recent  work has actually shown that buffers which extend all the way up
the ridge to the next watershed are the most effective at preventing
human caused impacts to streams. 
Of course there are varying opinions on this [;)  hardhat on....

kats wrote:
> 
>  as a full time consultant, i see lots of "buffers" along streams.  when
> they don't blow down, i think they do actually help keep some of the
> ecosystem intact (SOME ! ! )
> 
> it is good that we now have to leave these buffers; if only someone could
> figure out how wide they need to be in relation to the terrain to be
> stable.....  :)