Treatment Options And Known Effectiveness
The USDA Forest Service and other land management agencies have spent tens of millions of dollars on postfire emergency watershed stabilization measures intended to minimize flood runoff, peakflows, onsite erosion, offsite sedimentation, mud and debris flows, and other hydrologic damage to natural habitats as well as roads, bridges, reservoirs, and irrigation systems (General Accounting Office 2003). Determining the effectiveness and limitations of rehabilitation treatments is essential if cost-benefit analysis is used for making treatment decisions.
BAER treatments include:
The majority of information on BAER treatments focuses on hillslope treatments -- including mulching, seeding, and building erosion barriers -- which are regarded as a first line of defense against postfire erosion and unwanted sediment deposition. In addition, more research has been done, and is being done, on the development and evaluation of hillslope treatments than on channel or road treatments (Robichaud and others 2000).
Encyclopedia ID: p289
