Changes in Characteristics and Function of Woody Debris with Increasing Size of Streams in Western Washington
- 1 July 1989
- journal article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Transactions of the American Fisheries Society
- Vol. 118 (4) , 368-378
- https://doi.org/10.1577/1548-8659(1989)118<0368:cicafo>2.3.co;2
Abstract
In second- to fifth-order streams that drain old-growth timber in western Washington, characteristics and function of woody debris changed in relation to stream size. Average diameter, length, and volume of pieces of wood increased as stream size increased, whereas the frequency of occurrence of woody debris decreased. In streams with channel widths less than 7 m, 40% of the pieces of debris were oriented perpendicularly to the axis of flow; in streams with channel widths over 7 m, more than 40% of the pieces were oriented downstream. The types of pools most commonly associated with pieces of wood changed from plunge pools in small streams (42%) to debris scour pools in larger systems (62%). Pool area was correlated with the volume of the piece of wood forming the pool in streams of all sizes. However, this relationship was most evident in larger channels. Nearly 40% of the pieces of wood in channels less than 7 m wide were associated with sediment accumulations. Less than 30% of the pieces retai...Keywords
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