Riparian Terminology: Confusion and Clarification

摘要

Riparian zones occur throughout the United States as long strips of vegetation adjacent to streams, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and other inland aquatic systems that affect or are affected by the presence of water. This vegetation contributes to unique ecosystems that perform a large variety of ecological functions. Unfortunately, considerable variation is associated with riparian terminology, similar to problems associated with wetlands terminology (Mitsch and Gosselink 1993). This can lead to confusion when people attempt to communicate about riparian zones, particularly if they come from different disciplinary backgrounds. The goals of this paper are to promote awareness of this problem by describing variation associated with semantics in riparian terminology, to explain why this contributes to confusion, to show the importance of attempting to standardize this terminology, and to suggest ways that natural resource professionals can better describe what comprises a riparian ecosystem.