Water, Wind, Wood, and Trees

Recent Australian research has quantified the role of large wood (wood of any origin and length with a diameter greater than 0.1 m) in dissipating stream energy, forming pool habitats by local bed scour, protecting river banks from erosion, and damming rivers with long rafts causing avulsions. Large wood in Australian streams is sourced by a range of processes from the nearby riparian zone which has usually been degraded by post‐European settlement vegetation clearing. Large wood loadings within the bankfull channel are dependent not only on the type and quality of the riparian plant community but also on bankfull specific stream power, channel width, and the processes of large wood delivery to the stream. While bank erosion and floodplain stripping by catastrophic floods are obvious and important delivery mechanisms, treefall and trunk and branch breakage by strong winds during tropical cyclones and severe storms are also significant in the tropics. Furthermore, wood decay and downstream transport produce temporally dynamic large wood distributions. The longevity of natural large wood structures in rivers, such as rafts, debris dams, and log steps, requires determination. River rehabilitation programs need to not only include the reintroduction of large wood, but also carefully plan the spatial distribution of that wood, the most appropriate type and range of large wood structures, and, most importantly, the revegetation of the riparian zone to ensure a natural long‐term source of large wood. Exotic species management is an essential part of river rehabilitation

Bank · Clearing · Coarse Woody Debris · Erosion · Flood myth · Floodplain · Geography · Geomorphology · Habitat · Hydropower · Land reclamation · Large woody debris · Revegetation · Riparian zone · STREAMS · Environmental Science · Hydrology and Sediment Transport Processes · Soil erosion and sediment transport · Tree Root and Stability Studies · Ecology · Geology

• Hydraulic Resistance by the River Red Gum, Eucalyptus camaldulensis , in Ephemeral Desert Streams

  Open Access•Davison Graeme, David Dunkerley et al.•Australian Geographical Studies•1993

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