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Eab Infested Trees Essay

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We are examining if removal of EAB infested trees has an impact on stream health. In order to determine this, we conducted a one-way ANOVA test with our null hypothesis stating that forest disturbances do not have an impact on bank risk. After applying a one-way ANOVA test on all of the sections of the sites, the result of the one-way ANOVA shows the P-value is less than 0.05 (Table 2). In other words, this means we reject our null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis that forest disturbances do have an impact on bank risk. Table 2: The output of a one-way ANOVA test of a comparison between all 20 sections Groups Count Sum Average Variance Forest Disturbance 20 676.9 33.845 218.718 Bank Risk 20 454.5 22.725 108.218 …show more content…

In contrast, since the McCraney Valley site experienced a large amount of tree removal in 2012 (Oakville, 2009) and no follow up strategies were undertaken, the bank risk of McCraney Valley is significantly higher than the other three sites (reaches the highest score at 34.74). All visited sections of McCraney (section 11-15) are classified as high risk (refer to Appendix 5: Risk Rating Scheme of 20 Study Sections); Specifically, removing ash trees leads to the extreme lack of canopy coverage, which is a crucial X variable, resulting in a high Y variable (bank risk). Moreover, all the study sections of Munn’s Creek are considered medium risk and high risk because the natural condition is poor in terms of canopy cover based on the rating scheme.(refer to Appendix 4, Bank Risk Assessment of Munn’s Creek). For example, from our observations, there are only a small amount of ash trees that exist along the stream within Munn’s Creek. As a result, if Munn’s Creek is planning to remove ash trees in 2019 (Oakville, 2009), very careful thought out management plans must be executed to ensure the bank risk does not increase too drastically. Figure 5: This bar graph compares the average score of bank risk between the four sites 4.3 Colbourne Park: Why It's Score is Less than Munn’s Creek There is high canopy coverage (over 70%) that occurs in both Section 6 and Section 7 (Image 1), which leads to a smaller overall weighted

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