Dr John started by asking what is the most common fear among people and everyone shouted ‘water’! He started by defining small streams…

Small streams are generally  less than 3m in bankfull width (S3, S4 and S6). They are considered either perennial, ephemeral or intermittent according to Dr John Rex.

Their physical & Chemical roles/ contributions include : They are numerous (making up to 80% of the water body), provide migration corridors, have no mandatory buffers in BC (S4/S6), they are overlooked and deemed insignificant, influence downstream conditions and are usually sensitive.

Their Biological Role include:Highly productive at site level, High area of biodiversity and can be forage or migratory areas, lower gradient  reaches are important to juvenile fish.

A group of policy bodies and individuals came together to study some parameters such as:water quality and quantity, biological productivity, channel morphology, air & stream temperature. Objectives were:

• Maintain 50-70% of background shade so as to maintain stream temperature.
• Maintain long and short term supply of  large wood (debris) wood in streams.

The overall objective was to maintain a long term sustainability of small streams. They adapted information strategies, adapt and then adjust as necessary otherwise if successful, continue and just monitor.  Change was not really of any concern rather the  management concerns were: Shade in temperature and large wood supply. The study sites were spines and spruce stands.  He made a very funny joke: ‘The trees closest to the streams are usually the ones that end up in it”.His BIG dream is about communication, adaptive management.  As scientist, we need to move beyond some things and start communicating, evolve, collaborate beyond research communities, involve first nations, government, communities, stake holders, academia and moving forward adaptive management.

Dr John has a really great sense of humor which made his lecture quite interesting  to follow and easy to understand. Although it does not have any relevance to my research area, i would say it was quite a beneficial lecture and it gave me an insight into knowledge in an area i may not have any reasons to venture into.