Other miscellaneous measurements include streambank canopy, overiiang, streambank cover, 

 bank slope, and undercut 



Use, Testing, Validation: Riparian portion of method is in draft. 



Ease of Application: The system is easy to apply and particularly useM with aerial photo- 

 gra{As. The system becomes more time consuming as additional field attributes are added. 

 Its ease of application would be dependent on the approach used to interpret the data. 



Use in Defining System Response and Potential: The procedure as described does not 

 address system response other than vegetation ecology, although there are many attributes, 

 such as stream type, that could be used in the interpretation of system response. Site potential 

 is inherent in the data storage and analysis system. The attributes collected will allow a more 

 complete estimate of system response. 



Use in Determining State of System: The USPS procedure can be used to describe the state 

 of a riparian system, but the inventory would have to be designed to deal with cause and 

 effect relationships that would be useftil in determining potential state changes in a riparian 



system. 



Relation to Other Procedures: The USPS procedure does a good job of keeping open to 

 detailed attributes, such as soils information, landforms, and attributes. Standard soil taxo- 

 nomic classification can be placed into the procedure at the modifier level. The procedure 

 appears to fit into other vegetation classification schemes, such as those done on a regional or 

 provincial level. The ECODATA system appears to be a good data manager that would 

 benefit the analysis of any type of wetland/riparian classification effort. 



Automated Data Processing: ADP is inherent in the procedure and includes automated 

 analysis for determining a number of characteristics including community type. 



Limitations and Assumptions: The full application of all data attributes in the procedure 

 recognizes nearly all important vegetation, hydrologic, and geomorphic characteristics. Thus 

 it requires a diversified and experienced team to conduct the full application of the data 

 collection described in the document. The procedure appears flexible as it does not tie the 

 user down to any particular taxonomic system, but retains data integrity (with the exception 

 of stream morphology). This allows the user to move into many types of classification 

 systems easily and to provide important additional descriptions. 



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