This earthcache is located on the Watershed Center’s property and is owned and managed by the Greene County Park board. This area is only open from sunrise to sunset. The trail system here is a very short half a mile stretch. This is a earthcache and as such there is no container to find, you will need to answer the questions near the bottom before claiming this earthcache as a find. Enjoy this pretty area.
Local geology:
Located along the South Dry Sac River where it confluences with the Sanders Branch creek and Grandview branch creek is a unique area called a riparian zone. Riparian zones are water – saturated areas between stream banks and the upland terrestrial ecosystems. The riparian vegetation naturally protects water quality because the dense roots stabilize the stream bank, reduce erosion, trap sediments, and provide a buffer zone to withstand flash flood disturbances.
The term "riparian" refers to the banks of a natural waterway. A "riparian zone" is a buffer of land on either side of a stream, creek, river, or other waterway. This strip of land (often called a "riparian corridor" for its shape along a waterway) is allowed to grow naturally with native vegetation including grasses, sedges, mosses, flowers, shrubs, and trees. These riparian zones then act as a buffer between the waterway and whatever is on either side (often crop land, grazing land, or developed land). Runoff from any of these adjacent lands is filtered through the soil and root systems of the riparian zone and these same root systems stabilize the banks. By providing a buffer zone around the waterway, a riparian zone protects water quality and preserves and improves habitat for plants and animals.
A riparian zone is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the fifteen terrestrial biomes of the earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks are called riparian vegetation, characterized by hydrophilic plants. Riparian zones are significant in ecology, environmental management, and civil engineering because of their role in soil conservation, their habitat biodiversity, and the influence they have on fauna and aquatic ecosystems, including grassland, woodland, wetland or even non-vegetative.
Riparian zones dissipate stream energy. The meandering curves of a river, combined with vegetation and root systems, dissipate stream energy, which results in less soil erosion and a reduction in flood damage. Sediment is trapped, reducing suspended solids to create less turbid water, replenish soils, and build stream banks. Pollutants are filtered from surface runoff which enhances water quality via biofiltration.
A Riparian Corridor will:
- Dissipate stream energy: resulting in less soil erosion
- Trap sediment: Reduce suspended sediments to build stream bank
- Biofiltration: Filter pollutants from runoff and improve water quality
- Provide Natural landscape irrigation
- Provide an enerosion buffer to absorb the impactof of climate change and increased runoff from urbanization without damaging structures located behind a setback zone.
A healthy riparian corridor has a setback zone that is about 100 feet wide and has continuous running water passing through. There are seasonal riparian corridors where surface water is not always present but because of the high water table water will be flowing underground.
Diagram Credit: Maryland Cooperative Extension, University of Maryland,