Monitoring of Riparian Vegetation in Stream Restoration Techniques : Case Study of the YangJae Test Stream

초록

The stream environment in Korea has been deteriorated through single-purpose channel works for flood control, dense riparian land uses and water pollution. Riparian vegetation plays a significant role in determining stream corridor condition, vulnerability, and potential for restoration. Monitoring, evaluation, and adaptive management are essential components that must be undertaken to ensure the success of stream corridor restoration. Monitoring of vegetation may be conducted for a number of different purposes such as performance evaluation, trend assessment, risk assessment, and baseline characterization. Performance monitoring provides informations for adaptive management which gives the opportunity for course correction through evaluation and action. A reference site should be monitored along with the restored sites for the establishment of reference conditions. To evaluate the success of stream restoration and to provide informations for adaptive management, plant communities of the Yangjae stream as a restored sites as well as the Sagimak stream as a reference sites have been monitored since 1998. Results of monitoring in the Sagimak stream provided a restoration model of natural riparian vegetation and many botanical informations. Our research team continuously performed pre- and post-restoration monitoring in the Yangjae stream which was restored to recover disturbed stream habitat. Data collected from monitoring and assessment are used for adaptive management and fundamental data of developing stream restoration model.