Bottomland Hardwood Forest Concept

These ecosystems are commonly found wherever streams or rivers at least occasionally cause flooding beyond their channel confines.

Bottomland hardwood forest concept.

Historic blhs were a product of the natural hydrologic and geomorphic processes associated with their adjacent rivers. These lowland forests grow along river bottoms and tend to flood during the rainy season. Bottomland hardwood forests are floodplain forests that are periodically inundated or saturated during the growing season. 1982 mcwilliams and rosson 1990.

It occurs in floodplains along major rivers and streams notably along the missouri and mississippi rivers. These lowland forests grow along river bottoms and tend to flood during the rainy season. Bottomland hardwood forests support a great variety of tree and shrub species. Numerous attempts at bottomland hardwood restoration throughout eastern texas have been largely unsuccessful.

They are found along rivers and streams of the southeast and south central united states generally in broad floodplains. In the southeastern united states floodplain forests are referred to as bottomland hardwoods blh. Bottomland hardwood forests can reduce the risk and severity of flooding to downstream communities by providing areas to store floodwater. Typical tree species growing in these forests range from cottonwoods and sweetgums to cherrybark oaks water oaks and hickories.

To provide the scientific basis to manage southern bottomland hardwood and wetland forests and associated stream ecosystems for a sustained yield of forest products and other desired values. These forests are critically important to biodiversity wildlife carbon storage recreation and clean water in the south. A special kind of bottomland forest is riverfront bottomland forest also called riparian forest or just riverfront forest. Bottomland hardwood forests blh are found in temperate humid regions of the southeastern us primarily on alluvial floodplains adjacent to rivers.

These forests are subject to occasional scouring action of fast moving floodwaters. The greatest concentration of blh historically occurred within the mississippi alluvial valley mav but the ecotype also dominates floodplains throughout the gulf and atlantic coastal plains wharton et al. Bottomland hardwood forests are river swamps. The reforestation of bottomland hardwood sites with mast producing species including oaks and hickories is the most important step in achieving the goal of ecological restoration in bottomland hardwood systems stanturf et al.