One of the goals of the Agroecology Issue Team is to get information about the assessment, design, and maintenance of riparian buffers out to the public. For more than a decade, we have worked with landowners in the Bear Creek Watershed to install riparian buffers to reduce erosion, nitrate runoff, improve wildlife habitat, and aesthetics.

Here we would like to focus on several of our working "demonstration buffers" that have been installed throughout the watershed. Each of these buffers have been applied to private, working farms and have improved not only soil reclaimation but the way landowners see their property.

The tabs above represent several of our demonstration farms and are in chronological order of installation from left to right. The Risdal buffer was started in 1990 and all of the other buffers in the watershed have been installed since.

You can learn a little more about the history of the bear creek watershed by clicking HERE.