What are the most effective approaches for increasing fish habitat in streams?
The most important elements of watershed restoration are restoration of instream habitat complexity and restoration of riparian vegetation condition. Short-term habitat improvement measures include placing wood and other structures in streams to create pools and side channels. However, this work is expensive and only a limited number of stream segments can be treated in this way. The most effective, long-term solution to creating and maintaining aquatic habitat is thought to be restoring vegetation in riparian zones and headwalls (Sedell and Beschta 1991, FEMAT 1993), particularly by introducing conifers where they are deficient and accelerating the growth of conifers where they occur. Rather than establishing fixed standards as benchmarks for stream and forest conditions (e.g. a fixed number of pools or large conifers per kilometer), many feel that we should model forest management on natural dynamics of disturbance and succession in order to maintain a diversity of habitat types (e.g
