POSTFIRE RESPONSE OF FLOOD-REGENERATING RIPARIAN VEGETATION IN A SEMI-ARID LANDSCAPE

Ecology ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 88 (8) ◽  
pp. 2094-2104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil E. Pettit ◽  
Robert J. Naiman
2000 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. JACOBA SALINAS ◽  
GABRIEL BLANCA ◽  
ANA T. ROMERO

Riparian vegetation is vulnerable to human impact worldwide, and this is especially so in arid areas, yet there have been few quantitative studies and this is especially so in Spain. The state of the riparian vegetation along three major rivers and seasonal watercourses of south-eastern Spain was evaluated during 1992–93, using the species composition and community structure in watercourses of different sizes under different management. Reaches of the watercourses were classified using five vegetation indices, namely percentage cover, species richness, degree of connectivity between patches of the plant communities, number of exotic species, and evidence of natural regeneration. With the integration of these into one index, the degradation state of the riparian vegetation in each reach was quantified. In addition, types of human activities exerting the greatest impact were noted, and a scale to evaluate the intensity of each impact was established. The indications are that agriculture has very substantially altered the natural vegetation, and this index has served to highlight the most altered zones, and thus those in most urgent need of restoration. Less-degraded zones could serve as models and sources of plant species for future restoration. The degradation index made it possible to establish quickly, easily, and with a high degree of accuracy, the state of conservation of the riparian vegetation in the study area.


2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (24) ◽  
pp. 3474-3484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate L. Holland ◽  
Alison H. Charles ◽  
Ian D. Jolly ◽  
Ian C. Overton ◽  
Susan Gehrig ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (02) ◽  
pp. 605-619
Author(s):  
Bianca de Freitas Terra ◽  
◽  
Elvio Sergio Figueredo Medeiros ◽  
Jorge Iván Sánchez Botero ◽  
José Luis Costa Novaes ◽  
...  

The ecology of fish from intermittent streams in the Brazilian semi-arid region is still little known. In the past twenty years, the number of researchers dedicated to this topic has increased considerably. However, significant gaps still exist when compared to the perennial streams of other regions of Brazil. Questions that address seasonal variations come up against the determination of capture methods and techniques that are efficient in the different phases of the hydrological cycle. In addition, techniques widely used in perennial systems, such as electrofishing, in most cases, have not been effective. Aspects related to biology, physiology, behavior, functional and taxonomic ecology of fish still need to be investigated taking into account seasonal and spatial scale variations. In view of the growing transformation imposed on the Brazilian semi-arid region by the extensive use of natural resources and by climate change, aquatic environments and their biodiversity are threatened by the transformation of riparian vegetation, the sewage release, the species introduction, the modification of its course and artificial perennialization. Thus, we will present and discuss, in this paper, the studies developed on the ecology of fish in the intermittent streams of the Brazilian semi-arid region and the gaps and challenges to be faced by future research.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 1638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth C. McGwire

This paper describes a method of mapping riparian vegetation in semi-arid to arid environments using the Landsat normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The method successfully identified a range of riparian community types across the entire state of Nevada, USA, which spans 7 degrees of latitude and almost 4000 m of elevation. The landscape was stratified into units of similar elevation and solar exposure, and riparian areas were identified as having anomalously high NDVI within a local neighborhood. Thousands of calibration points were used in a simplex optimization to select the spatial neighborhood, the elevation and insolation strata, the minimum NDVI to be considered as potentially riparian, the number of standard deviations from the mean for an anomaly to be classified as riparian, and a limit on upslope position. Mapping of subpixel riparian corridors was improved by applying a directional high-pass filter to the NDVI data. Irrigated areas in agricultural and urban areas were removed based on land ownership maps and manual editing. The final map was tested with 400 independent test points: producer’s accuracy was 84.6% and user’s accuracy was 93.5%. This method should be broadly useful for mapping riparian features across large and complex regions with arid to semi-arid environments.


Author(s):  
MAIARA TÁBATHA DA SILVA BRITO ◽  
SILVANO LIMA DO NASCIMENTO FILHO ◽  
GIRLENE FÁBIA SEGUNDO VIANA ◽  
MAURO MELO JÚNIOR

In the semi-arid region of Brazil, artificial reservoirs are ecosystems of extremely important ecological and social. Due to pressures caused by long periods of pluviometric irregularity, the reservoirs Cachoeira I and Barra, located in the interior of Pernambuco, have been subject to very significant changes, marked mainly by the reduction of stored water volume, seasonal changes in the abiotic parameters, reduction of riparian vegetation and absence of macrophytes. All these changes were observed in this study through the use of an auxiliary monitoring tool, a rapid assessment protocol adapted for lentic ecosystems of semiarid, capable of detecting numerous types of environmental changes, assisting in monitoring these springs.


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