Monitoring of Streambank Stability and Streamside Vegetation in a Livestock Exclosure on the Warm Springs River, Oregon: Comparison of Ground-based Surveys with Aerial Photographic Analysis
Abstract
The objective of this monitoring project was to determine the baseline condition for a 960-m long stream reach and its associated streamside zone, which terminates at the confluence with the Deschutes River. This stream reach had been damaged heavily in the February 1996 flood and had also received many years of overuse by livestock grazing. The monitoring project was conducted in July 1997 just after installation of riparian exclosure fencing. Future resurvey of the study area will allow determination of progress made in ecological recovery.
Data were collected via aerial photography followed by GIS mapping and analysis and also by ground-based surveys. Primary environmental features surveyed included streamside vegetation, channel morphology, and streambank stability. Data collected for each quadrat included vegetative type (tree, shrub, forb, grasses) and species, height class, and cover class and also type of ground cover (e.g., cobble, gravel, sand, soil, ground-layer vegetation). Ground-based photography was hot-linked to photopoints indicated on GIS vegetation maps. Project files in the GIS permitted displaying orthorectified aerial photography as a background layer to mapped vegetation polygons, quadrats and transect lines, photopoints, contour lines, etc.
Authors
Citation
McCullough, D.A. 1999. Monitoring of streambank stability and streamside vegetation in a livestock enclosure on the Warm Springs River, Oregon: comparison of ground-based surveys with aerial photographic analysis. Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission Technical Report 99-1. Portland, Oregon. 194p.