Stream bank erosion has high temporal and spatial variability. Although stream bank erosion exhibits high variability, land use has a significant impact on stream bank erosion rates, total bank eroding lengths and total soil losses. In this study in Iowa, intensive row-cropping and intensive continuous grazing sustained high levels of stream bank erosion. Riparian forest buffer vegetation with perennial roots reduced stream bank erosion, significantly. That reduction will likely increase as the buffers continue to mature. Calculations indicate that if the 6- to 9-year old riparian forest buffers were in place along all the row-crop fields and continuously-grazed pastures, of the 7.8 km non-buffered study reach, stream bank erosion would have been reduced by 72%. While this paper reports results from a local watershed, Zaimes et al. believe that the rankings of the treatments used in their study would remain the same in most landscape settings but that absolute stream bank erosion rates and soil losses might be different. The goal of sustainable land use management should sustain minimal levels of stream bank erosion. Riparian forest buffers accomplish this goal effectively. By reducing the two major sources of sediment load in the streams, riparian forest buffers provide an alternative land-use for riparian zones that will decrease the major non-point source pollutant, sediment.
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