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The Importance of Riparian Forest Cover to the Ecological Status of Agricultural Streams in a Nationwide Assessment

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  • Mikko Tolkkinen

    (Finnish Environment Institute, Freshwater Centre)

  • Saku Vaarala

    (Finnish Environment Institute, Freshwater Centre)

  • Jukka Aroviita

    (Finnish Environment Institute, Freshwater Centre)

Abstract

Forested riparian corridors are a key management solution for halting the global trend of declining ecological status of freshwater ecosystems. There is an increasing body of evidence related to the efficacy of these corridors at the local scale, but knowledge is inadequate concerning the effectiveness of riparian forests in terms of protecting streams from harmful impacts across larger scales. In this study, nationwide assessment results comprising more than 900 river water bodies in Finland were used to examine the importance of adjacent land use to river ecological status estimates. Random forest models and partial dependence functions were used to quantify the independent effect of adjacent land use on river ecological status after accounting for the effects of other factors. The proportion of adjacent forested land along a river had the strongest independent positive effect on ecological status for small to medium size rivers that were in agricultural landscapes. Ecological quality increased by almost one status class when the adjacent forest cover increased from 10 to 60%. In contrast, for large rivers, adjacent forested land did not show an independent positive effect on ecological status. This study has major implications for managing river basins to achieve the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) goal of obtaining good ecological status of rivers. The results from the nationwide assessment demonstrate that forested riparian zones can have an independent positive effect on the ecological status of rivers, indicating the importance of riparian forests in mitigating the impacts of catchment-level stressors. Therefore, forested buffer zones should be more strongly considered as part of river basin management.

Suggested Citation

  • Mikko Tolkkinen & Saku Vaarala & Jukka Aroviita, 2021. "The Importance of Riparian Forest Cover to the Ecological Status of Agricultural Streams in a Nationwide Assessment," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 35(12), pages 4009-4020, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:waterr:v:35:y:2021:i:12:d:10.1007_s11269-021-02923-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s11269-021-02923-2
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. George Pavlidis & Vassilios A. Tsihrintzis, 2018. "Environmental Benefits and Control of Pollution to Surface Water and Groundwater by Agroforestry Systems: a Review," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 32(1), pages 1-29, January.
    2. Qingyuan Zhao & Trevor Hastie, 2021. "Causal Interpretations of Black-Box Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 272-281, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Mārcis Saklaurs & Agnese Anta Liepiņa & Didzis Elferts & Āris Jansons, 2022. "Social Perception of Riparian Forests," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-12, July.

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