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High Achieving Tree Landscapes Help Clean Surface Waters

Planting trees and providing proper maintenance in riparian buffers help maximize ecosystem services, including reducing erosion and filtering pollutants from runoff.

Updated:

March 18, 2021

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This 100 year-old forest buffer has transformed Mill Run from a wool-washing mill stream to a nicely shaded stable flood plain in northwest PA. Photo by Scott Sjolander, Penn State Extension.

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Feeling harried that parts of your manicured lawn are not measuring up when it comes to the market standards of perfect turf? How about some research-based latitude to repurpose some scalped or mossy areas along a swale or creek as forested landscape? This is not a call to turn your neighborhood soccer field or guest entertainment patio into a local code violation. In fact, a second step is to check your local regulations. First, think about what activities you want to enjoy in such areas of your property. Maybe you don't require a closely mown turf surface only three inches tall in those spaces, and they could perform another function more successfully, and with less effort on your part.

Once you decide on some objectives, map your thoughts on a tablet (paper, digital, or otherwise). Designers would begin to call this a base map, where you show property boundaries, areas of concern (where your mower often gets stuck), neighborhood desires or issues (where your visiting inspector peers at your unrelenting diligence), utilities (be sure to call PA 811, power lines, water lines, gas lines, septic laterals, etc.), traffic areas (driveway, neighbor youth short-cuts), what's special (like your water feature, a favorite view, Fido goes here), and your desires (entertainment here, lawn darts here, soccer happens here, garden gets sun and water here). You may have spaces where some other activities could become special (it stays cooler here during hot summer days, you gain at least 30 minutes of your life back each week, you save $100 each year in maintenance costs).

Professional planners call these enjoyable home items your private benefits. Your property value may increase; and your privacy could increase, depending on the spaces you have available. If your next door neighbor has similar concerns and likes your results well enough to adopt some of your practices, her/his/their private benefits could adjoin, compounding the overall effect.

Planners have a prestigious label for your thinking. It works so well it's called a best management practice. If your landscape effort happens along stream waters or drainages, or water bodies, it is called a riparian buffer. Research-based conservation design standards indicate the benefits begin as your new landscape is at least 30 feet wide (extending in distance from your intensively managed activity area to the shoreline) and gets better exponentially (better-better) as your buffer width increases. You provide evidence that it is an intentional practice, not being neglected by continuing your normally meticulous care of the area around it. Taking care to weed it of undesirable characteristics (like trash, weeds, and unintended plants out of place) will often gain you favor to let it grow into full ecological functionality. Your investment of intended plants may be necessary, and it will accelerate your landscape buffer success.

Recently planted Riparian Buffer. This year-old planting of native species will help hold the banks of the Conestoga River in place. Tree canopies will grow to shade this park setting and reduce maintenance in a few years. Photo by Scott Sjolander, Penn State Extension.

Consult your natural resource design professional and your Extension office to imitate the best of natural processes. Nature will begin to work for you much more effectively than you could hope to achieve on your own. Benefits take time to accrue, perhaps 20 years to begin to appear mature. However, positive results can begin to show in a year. Penn State Extension's Master Watershed Stewardship Program has developed a Watershed-Friendly Property Certification. Learn the steps involved to check your property against target goals on the Certification webpage. Educational signage goes a long way in demonstrating the significance of your effort.

Watershed-Friendly Certification placard awaiting spring thaw to place at the awarded property. Photo by Scott Sjolander, Penn State Extension.

In 1948, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act was enacted in response to depletion of water quality. The Act was significantly reorganized and expanded in 1972 and renamed the "Clean Water Act" with amendments to protect and improve water and air quality. To comply with the act requirements and continue improving water quality throughout Pennsylvania, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) is encouraging and assisting forested landscapes. To carry this out, DCNR, cooperating organizations, and individuals are working to assist and plant 95,000 acres of new riparian forest buffers by 2025. Reaching this goal will improve water quality in the Commonwealth, of which about a third contributes to the Chesapeake Bay. See how your efforts can help by visiting the DCNR Riparian Buffer website.

Riparian Forest buffer practices are important to sustainable landscape design and will surely be needed for the Commonwealth to meet water quality standards. Make your space dreams come as true as you practically can, and you may be able to begin to spend less energy on your more ecological landscape. To enjoy the greatest compliant practical benefits from your high-performance landscape, be sure to inquire of your local code enforcement department and your County Conservation District. These professional agents are responsible to manage water quantity and quality across the Commonwealth. Your backyard is a contributing drainage collected eventually in the Chesapeake Bay; the Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico; or Lake Erie to the St. Lawrence River.