Riparian Management in Forests of the Continental Eastern United States

Rating:
Summary: What to think about when managing forests near streams
Review: This book is very helpful for ecologist, forest managers, and policy makers with little knowledge of riparian systems. Riparian experts would not find this book helpful. The book reviews riparian ecology and effects of forest management on riparian systems through a series of chapters on water quality, riparian habitat, and different species groups. Each chapter ends with a bulleted summary including management suggestions which makes the text an value primer. This also makes it possible for a practioneer to identify the ecological values of concern and develop ones own apporach to maintaining any subset of ecological values. The organization makes it easy to locate relevant information. Summary chapters synthesize the results into suggestiond for BMPs to maintain water quality, riparian habitat, and riparian species. The organization makes it fairly easy to work backwards from these suggestions and evaluate the reasoning of each BMP. The completeness of the literature review was above average. As a research ecologist, I only wished that the reviews were more complete though many relevant studies are cited.