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Riparian Health Part 4

This is the fourth post in a series on riparian health. It gets down to the ‘nitty-gritty’ of working through the questions. If you haven’t already done so, please read the previous articles on the importance of riparian areas and the need for assessments.

Successfully navigating the riparian health assessment (RHA) procedure benefits from three key habits: tuning your eyes, taking good notes and being systematic. It also requires being conscience of your biases. And, you should also have some understanding of what is normal, or what might be missing or modified.

Riparian Health Part 3

In the previous two posts in this series on riparian health, I covered the importance of riparian systems to agriculture, and the need for measuring and monitoring their health.

In this post I’ll share some pro-tips on setting up and conducting an assessment. These include:

Selecting an assessment area;
Setting its boundaries;
Assessent timing; and,
Overcoming evaluation biases.

Riparian Health Part 2

Riparian health is a key concept for agricultural stewardship. In my last post I discussed the value of riparian areas in agricultural settings. I also described the benefits of maintaining riparian zones to avoid on- and off-farm environmental impacts. In this post I will cover the importance of measuring and monitoring riparian areas.

What is Riparian Health?

Riparian health refers to the overall condition of the green zone. This score expresses how well the current structure functions relative to its full potential.

Riparian Health Part 1

The Importance of Riparian Zones

To manage riparian health, one first must understand what you are managing. Riparian zones, sometimes referred to as ‘green zones‘, are critical areas for stewardship in the agricultural landscape. They are a transition between aquatic areas (streams, lakes, wetlands, etc.) and the terrestrial (upland) zones. They typically flood on a regular basis, or have persistently high water tables. And this means they have features that reflect their part-aquatic, part-terrestrial nature.

The ecological importance of the green zone cannot be overstated. Riparian areas are highly productive. And they support vegetation and other life that thrives because of the abundant water, nutrients and organic matter that accumulates.

Priority Agricultural Pests of the Cariboo Region

Climate change is already influencing, and will continue to influence, the dynamics and impacts of agricultural pests in the Cariboo region. During the Cariboo Adaptation Strategy planning process of the BC Agriculture and Food Climate Action Initiative, stakeholders identified a number of agricultural pests of concern. This process also highlighted a significant gap in regional monitoring.