Riparian Alternative Buffer Stream Temperature Data

In intensively managed forests, riparian buffers are retained during timber harvest to maintain shade with the goal of limiting stream temperature increases. Conventional buffer designs often designate a minimum width, but there is interest in potential alternative configurations such as hydrologically adaptive variable retention or canopy gaps that would trade off other protections and/or potential increases in stream production for more variation in shading with patches of higher light. To understand stream temperature responses to conventional and novel alternative riparian buffer configurations, including Canopy Gaps and Variable Retention treatments, we conducted a large-scale before-after control-impact (BACI) experiment across 28 streams in western Oregon. We established 6 replicate stream blocks. Blocks include sets of 5 streams that each had a different potential forest and riparian condition. First, each block had an uncut reference stream. Then in each block, there four streams that had upland forest management and one of four different riparian buffer designs (Fixed-Width, Standard Practice, Variable Retention, and Canopy Gaps). The management (logging) occurred on both sides of the stream in two block (Walton and Valsetz) and on just one side of the stream in four of the blocks (Newport, Astoria, Scappoose, and Vernonia). In the Astoria block two sites were removed (Gaps and Fixed Width treatments) due to logistical issues in accessing sites or in data collection. Data were collected from each site two years before the treatments were applied and for two years after. We staggered implementation of treatments across 6 experimental blocks with forest harvest treatments applied in winter-spring of 2021 (1 block), 2022 (1 block), and 2023 (4 blocks). The data here include temperature measurements collected via Hobo/PME data loggers every 10-60 minutes in degrees Celsius from each stream during mid-summer (July 19 to Aug 31) over 4 years in each stream. In each stream we had data loggers deployed along each 200 to 300 m study reach. We provide the data from each logger, designating its distance from the downstream end of the focal study reach in each stream.