An Ecological Assessment of the Louisiana Tensas River Basin Chapter 5 
Chapter 5: Comments 
Recommendations 
There are many fine features which make up the 
Tensas River Basin. Fertile farmlands, deep forests 
and abundant wildlife form the basis of the good life 
provided by the land near the Tensas River. The 
continued good health of the Tensas River Basin 
depends on how the land is used. The health of the 
basin should be of concern to everyone living there 
because their livelihood depends on what the land 
can provide. Efforts to practice Best Farming Prac¬ 
tices and the steps taken to restore forested wet¬ 
lands in the Tensas River Basin are a big step in the 
direction of keeping the Tensas healthy. A healthy 
Tensas River providing clean water and sound prod¬ 
ucts will also benefit those living down stream and 
can improve the quality of the Gulf of Mexico. 
This chapter draws comments and recommenda¬ 
tions from what was learned from the landscape 
analysis of the Tensas River Basin. Two of the main 
concerns of land management and environmental 
monitoring and protection are determining whether 
environmental features are changing (for better or 
worse) and determining whether management and 
protection practices are working effectively. These 
are complex issues. While the landscape analysis 
performed in this atlas begins to address these 
questions, it is only a beginning and is only part of the 
scientific work needed to answer complex ecological 
questions. 
Comments 
The forest loss over the time period studied was 
remarkable. Forest loss of this magnitude is bound 
to have an effect on environmental quality. Much of 
the lost forest was converted to agriculture making 
human use of the land very high in most of the 
subwatersheds. High intensity agriculture makes 
use of fertilizer. The landscape model showing the 
potential for nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) 
loading is high when compared to other watersheds 
throughout the United States. Although most of the 
fertilizer applied is effectively used to grow a good 
crop, it is virtually unavoidable that some of the 
fertilizer will run off the land. The fertilizer which 
does run off can be intercepted by natural vegetation 
but when this vegetation is gone, excess fertilizer 
can run directly into the water and be carried down 
stream. 
and 
The land of the Tensas River Basin is flat. Water 
moves slowly compared to a river located in the 
mountains. Water flow is driven by events such as 
rain storms and hurricanes. Water and nutrients can 
be held in swamp areas only to be flushed out during 
high precipitation events. The natural vegetation 
located in the backswamp areas can be as or more 
important in holding excess nutrients than the vegeta¬ 
tion located near the stream. 
The landscape analyses demonstrated that since 
1972 the forest was lost around the forest edges and 
generally not separated into small patches. Forest 
patch size was maintained so that in the event of 
stress to the forest (fire or flood) the forest and forest 
wildlife should be able to reestablish itself in a robust 
manner. Looking at the forest restoration efforts 
indicated that very wise decisions were made in the 
locations of forests reestablishment. Areas chosen 
included riparian areas, backswamp areas and areas 
which connected forest patches. Hopefully this land¬ 
scape assessment can verify that the correct deci¬ 
sions were made, reveal how the forest changes will 
look when the trees have matured, and identify addi¬ 
tional areas to restore. It also showed that little or no 
restoration efforts are underway in the southern part of 
the watershed. Using Best Farming Practices to 
reduce fertilizer runoff combined with forest restora¬ 
tion should make a positive impact on the quality of 
water and the quality of the land. 
Figure 5.1 The Tensas River Winter 1997-1998 
