• What new information or knowledge did you learn from this presentation?

Dr Rex defined small streams as having a bankfull width of less than 3m (S3, S4, & S6). They can be perennial, ephemeral, or intermittent. They are important because they are very numerous (60-80% of streams), influence downstream condition, provide migration corridors, have no mandatory buffers in BC (s4/s6) and are often overlooked or deemed insignificant even though they are the most sensitive. They have important biological contributions such as being highly productive at site levels with high levels of biodiversity. Dr Rex also mentioned that natural disturbances in riparian zones do not normally remove all the trees as harvesting does. With the compounding effects of forestry, forest fires, bark beetle outbreaks, climate change, landscape hydrology is being seriously altered in British Columbia.

In an attempt to combat this issue, the District Manager in Prince George created a policy to address small stream retention around fish-bearing streams. A study was performed in which they paired watersheds before and after harvesting and sought to test the effectiveness of the minimum prescription of leaving 10 stems/100 m. These test sites were within SBS (dw2, vk, wk1). They tested harvest effects on shade, air, and stream temperature pre-and post harvest. Two years after harvest they found that shade recovered to pre-harvest conditions but air and stream temperature did not. They also found that headwater and larger streams were slow to recover after extensive harvesting but smaller streams recovered worse. This was due to smaller buffers (approx. 3m). Higher buffer zones result in better outcomes (especially buffers over 10m). They determined that maintaining large wood supply is important to ensure canopy complexity that regulates air and water temperature.

• Are there particular aspects of the presentation you enjoyed or intrigued you and are there others that could have been improved? (Can include presentation style and content).

I appreciated Dr Rex’s optimism and sense of humor. When talking about the negative impacts of industry it is easy to focus on all of the negatives and come out with a relatively pessimistic or grim outlook. Despite the poor management practices that Dr. Rex spoke about and the hesitancy of industry to modify practices, he demonstrated that with evidence and persistence, management practices can be changed for the better. I also thought that his slides were interesting and helped me understand his presentation.

• Are there components of the research that would be applicable or relevant to your own Master’s research? (Can comment on particular approach or methodology, datasets used, philosophies, implications to society etc.)

While my research focuses on conservation area design which often uses watershed boundaries I am not actually using any hydrological targets in my conservation prioritization. I did perform a watershed intactness analysis within my study area to identify those watersheds that have the least anthropogenic disturbance, I am not incorporating this information in my conservation prioritization. My research is looking at landscape level conservation. I feel it would be more appropriate to do a hydrological analysis and incorporate watershed boundaries, naturalness, as well as riparian area in a finer scale management plan for a specific area of interest.

• How well did the speaker respond to questions and is there a question you would have asked given the opportunity?

I thought that Dr. Rex did a good job of answering questions to the best of his ability and was willing to hand questions off appropriately to others who were more qualified to respond (for example field crew in the audience). He clearly had a good grasp of the literature and is well connected in his field. I appreciated how he referred to studies and individuals who could answer questions more clearly.