Abstract
Many guidelines and ordinances to protect the ecological functions of riparian buffers have been introduced in the United States. This paper aims to review these American standards on riparian forest protection in order to examine the methods and principle of riparian buffer management guidelines and explore the feasibility to develop similar standards in Japan. The main objectives of riparian forest protection in the United States are 1)water quality control, 2)stream bank stabilization, 3)aquatic habitat protection and 4)terrestrial habitat and corridor conservation, for which the standard widths are established separately. In addition to buffer widths, riparian buffers within entire catchments and plant species composition have been discussed. Soft approaches such as incentives and education programs are also introduced to consolidate the effectiveness of standard settings. This review will provide important knowledge to establish Japanese guidelines for riparian forest management, which is urgently required to meet the increasing social demands on protecting the important ecological functions of riparian forests.
