Erosion mitigation practices for stream protection in the Eden woodchip area

Abstract

Field inspections to establish the frequency of occurrence and the length of sediment tongues around the boundaries of drainage lines of logged coupes on the granite soils in the Eden Woodchip Area, New South Wales showed that a sediment tongue occurs for every 0.5 km of drainage line but that sediment tongues penetrate to drainage lines on average once per 2.4 km of drainage line.

When the lengths of sediment tongues are compared with the provisions for buffer strip width, it is concluded that, for slopes for up to 20*, a width of buffer strip of 20 metres is conservative.

Associated studies of the source of sediment in sediment tongues, using the isotopes Cs-137 and Be-7, showed that the source of the sediment was almost entirely from the snig tracks. The methods used are promising for the study of sediment tongues. Show more