A long, long time ago…: Historical evidence of riparian forests in the Great Plains and how that knowledge can aid with restoration and management

Elliott West; Greg Rurak

Historical evidence of riparian forests in the Great Plains and how that knowledge can aid with restoration and management

Excerpt

Riparian areas—land adjacent to a streambank or other water body—filtering nonpoint source pollution. Unfortunately the riparian areas of today, include only narrow bands of forests, or no woody vegetation. This greatly minimizes their ecological function. In deciding how to manage these areas, knowing the natural riparian makeup before humans settled in the area is vital. Management essentially is then restoration.

While some argue that the Great Plains were dominated by grasslands and that riparian woodlands were rare, others contend that trees would logically have occurred in riparian areas due to favorable microenvironment conditions. Historically, what native plant communities were found in riparian zones of the Great Plains? The answers to this question depend to a large extent on what time period is used as a reference of pre-settlement conditions.

The US. Fish and Wildlife Service (1981) drew upon conditions in 1905 for insight and concluded that trees were “wholly absent” or consisted of scattered cottonwood and willow. However, such a view rests on a flawed and incomplete reading of the record. Indeed, by 1900 most …

Footnotes

Elliott West is a professor of history at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas, Greg Rurak is the director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agroforestry Center in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Copyright 2004 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society

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