Hi everyone!
I included pictures of the steep banks along the river. Thanks to the nice weather, I was able to get pictures of these by wading out into the river rather than bothering my neighbor to take some photos from the opposite side (wild!.. but refreshing). One of the photos shows the path that many deer take to get onto our land, which is actively eroding thanks to foot traffic, and I contributed to it some more today.
Aside from the steep banks, topsoil erosion is taking place in many areas around the land due to lack of vegetation, which also means lack of soil microbiota (I will look at the microbiology under a microscope this spring, once everything wakes up, and I will be able to estimate the biomass of each of the functional groups of organisms to give some quantitative data to back up this statement). Soil microbes do an immense amount of work to maintain soil structure! Beneficial soil microbes do more for maintaining soil structure than plant roots, actually. Plants are constantly feeding the soil microbes to fuel their ability to build soil structure, but if the microbes aren’t present, they aren’t doing the work. The soil must have bacteria and fungi to produce the glues that hold the micro and macro aggregates in the soil together.
The economic impact of erosion is difficult to pinpoint. I currently do not make money off of my land. However, if it were revived to the level that I want, I estimate the current economic impact may be around 50-70K per year.
Benefits of LTPBR: I think there will be a lot of benefits. I hope to implement multiple LTPBR techniques. Live gravel bar staking might be a good fit for a small island we have, which is situated downstream from the primary restoration area. I would like to do live palisades in a couple of areas, and brush layers. Post assisted log structures in the river might be a good fit as well because we do get some pretty high flows.
Challenges: Time! Ha. It may be difficult to get the time to do this. Also, I am postponing my plans to do the restoration on our land this year because I want to begin the research process (checking the soil microbiota throughout the year) before the restoration takes place so I have a baseline. We are also going to do some archaeological testing to ensure we do not disturb any archaeological deposits. Other challenges are the high flows. We will have to thoughtfully design our post-assisted log structures so ensure longevity. I discovered that the historic canoe trail will not affect our plans to do restoration.