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CRC PUBLICATIONS |
Guidelines for Stabilising Streambanks with Riparian Vegetation
Bruce Abernathy, Ian Rutherfurd
Publication Type:
Technical Report
This is a publication of the current CRC for Catchment Hydrology
CRC Program:
River Restoration
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Publication Keywords:
Streams (in Natural Channels)
Banks
Erosion
Erosion Control
Revegetation
Riparian Vegetation
Restoration
River Management
Standards
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Abstract / Summary:
In Australia, poor management practices have fostered the substantial and ongoing degradation of riparian lands. Removal, fragmentation and alternation of vegetation cover, combined with changed flow regimes, has increased the incidence of riverbank erosion. Decreased riverbank stability results in accelerated changes in channel morphology, lost agricultural production and reduced water quality. Poorly managed riparian zones have also led to increased movement of sediments, nutrients and other contaminants from surrounding lands into river systems.
Over the past six years, the Land and Water Resources Research and Development Corporation has run a national program of research aimed at improving the management of riparian lands throughout Australia. Within this framework, the Cooperative Research Centre for Catchment Hydrology has conducted a range of scientific investigations to quantify the physical influence of riparian vegetation over river processes, including bank erosion and nutrient and sediment movement through buffers.
Good progress has been made in this research and we are now in a position to communicate some of the results to landholders and stream managers. One issue that is of particular interest to stream managers is how wide vegetated riparian strips need to be along streams to perform various functions. In this regard, the Queensland Department of Natural Resources contracted the Cooperative Research Centre for Catchment Hydrology to write technical guidelines, now produced in this report. The guidelines provide techniques to help specify the width and composition of vegetated riparian zones, for bank erosion control. A companion report to this one, published by CSIRO Land and Water (Karssies & Prosser, 1999), provides detail on the design of riparian zones to filter sediment and nutrients from overland flow entering streams.
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Centre Office:
CRC for Catchment Hydrology
Dept of Civil Engineering
Building 60
Monash University Vic 3800
Tel: +61 3 9905 2704
Fax: +61 3 9905 5033
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