Reducing Low Traffic Road: Stream Impacts
Publication: Watershed Management and Operations Management 2000
Abstract
We believe that the evolving concept of ecosystem management has helped us to take a broader view of the established discipline and practice of watershed management. In watershed management the stream or river catchment is an integrated unit of physical and biological components linked by the delivery, storage, transport, and use of water. Ridgeline is linked to midslope, which is linked to bottomlands, which are linked to the aquatic zone. Water carries nutrients, assists in the spread and nourishment of organisms, and is a key agent in the formation of topography and soils that support a watershed and its ecosystem. As with any linked system, management actions that affect any single part of an ecosystem are, in turn, likely to impact other parts of that system. Traditionally, Watershed Management has focused on water quality and the human activities that affect it. Ecosystem Management broadens that focus to emphasize, equally, other elements of the forest ecosystem that often have been ignored or overlooked. From this expanded viewpoint, we are able to recognize problem sources in the ecosystem context rather than just the symptoms as manifest at isolated points in the stream.
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© 2000 American Society of Civil Engineering.
History
Published online: Apr 26, 2012
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Ecosystems
- Engineering fundamentals
- Environmental engineering
- Highway and road management
- Highway transportation
- Infrastructure
- River engineering
- River systems
- Rivers and streams
- Systems engineering
- Systems management
- Traffic analysis
- Traffic engineering
- Traffic management
- Transportation engineering
- Water and water resources
- Water transportation
- Watersheds
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