Aquatic-Riparian Systems

As water plays a defining role for the development of moist coniferous forests, aquatic-riparian systems are defining components of these landscapes. In the Pacific Northwest, aquatic-riparian ecosystems in moist forests are increasingly being recognized as multistate systems, with a complex mix of heterogeneous habitats within and among watersheds and a host of disturbances at play over time (box 14.1). Although a mosaic of conditions has been recognized previously for aquatic systems (e.g., Pringle et al. 1988), there is a renewed focus on the thermal (Torgersen et al. 1999; Armstrong and Schindler 2013) and habitat (Stanford et all 2005) heterogeneity of aquatic-riparian systems and on multifaceted approaches for their management (Rieman et al. 2015).