An Ecological Assessment of the Louisiana Tensas River Basin Chapter 3 
This comparison can be seen in Table 3.6. Riparian areas 
have undergone changes in the Basin. In most cases, the 
forest change tends to be higher near streams. The 
highest forest change in the riparian areas was in 
subwatershed 8 where there was a 23.7 percent loss in 
forest vegetation. This data shows us where land use 
practices can be changed to help improve water quality. 
Improvements could be made in subwatershed 8 if the 
land owners are willing to convert the riparian strip of land 
back to forest vegetation. 
Vegetation Change along the Tensas River Reach 
Backswamp Area Analysis 
The backswamp areas of the Tensas River Basin play a 
very important role in the ecology of this water system. 
The land is very flat which means that water can move into 
stream channels and it can also collect in low-lying areas. 
These areas, which can hold water for months at a time 
after big rain events, make up lakes, swamps, and wetland 
forests. Figure 3.20 shows the location of Tensas River 
Basin backswamp areas. Information about changes to 
and locations of the backswamp areas will be an indicator 
of water quality in this watershed. 
The vegetation along a stream affects the condition of 
the stream and the water in the stream. This analysis 
includes the area 360 meters on either side of the main 
channel of the Tensas River and the same distance on 
either side of the major tributaries of the Tensas River. 
The results are shown in Table 3.5 and illustrated in 
Figure 3.19. 
Compared to the overall Tensas River Basin which had a 
21.3% overall loss in forest vegetation the data show that 
loss in the immediate area of the river and its tributaries 
was only 7.5%. Although the loss of forest vegetation 
was 7.5%, it shows that more vegetation was left within 
360-meters of the main portion of the Tensas River and 
should help prevent stream bank erosion and excess 
nutrient loading to the river. 
The backswamp areas in the Tensas River Basin are 
very important in terms of using the excess nutrients 
found in the water and holding water during heavy rain 
events. The combination of these flood areas with the 
forest change landscape indicators is shown in Table 3.7 
and Figure 3.21. Forest change in backswamp areas is 
somewhat different that in other areas. A higher per¬ 
centage of backswamp area was lost in subwatershed 4 
(around the town of Tallulah) than in the entire Tensas 
watershed. A complete comparison between the Tensas 
subwatersheds is given in Table 3.7. 
