Removing rocks from the stream bed or stream edge to stack or throw can be aesthetically pleasing, but very damaging to the habitat you remove them from in both the short and long term. In the short term you are altering water currents, potentially speeding up certain areas and slowing down others which not only displaces wildlife in both of those areas, but may result in neither being suitable for habitation. It also creates a cascading effect in water flow, causing sediment to settle in areas of what is now slow flow and increasing erosion in areas of high speed flow. This disturbs the physical environment of the waterway, as well as its chemical (nutrient), chronological (change over time) development, and oxygenation.
In the long term, moving rocks brings about another issue, which is erosion. All waterways are shaped by erosion, and a rule in geology is the bigger the rock, the more force it takes to move. This rule is universal from boulders all the way down to individual clay particles. Your ability as a person to lift an even moderately sized rock has a monumental impact on the dynamics of the waterway. In some areas, a rock that may fit in just the palm of your hand might only be able to be moved by a once in a generation flood event. A stack of 3 or 4 of these rocks removes the equivalent of HUNDREDS of years of potential habitats, oxygen infusion into the water, or accelerates/decelerates the rate of erosion in the area you removed/added the rocks by hundreds of years. Simultaneously, you are impacting the riparian zone (edge of the waterway), an incredibly important habitat for terrestrial, aquatic, and amphibious plant and animal life. Changes erosion at the edge of a stream, river, or lake impact the whole body of water in all of the same ways as listed above.
Knowing when not to intervene is an equally important aspect of being a good steward to your natural environment as knowing when to intervene. Let nature do it’s thing and you’ll have even more beauty to enjoy when you are surrounded by it
If there is a fluvial geomorphologist in the room I will leave the floor to them to do any more explanation, but no I’m not lol. Definitely a fun field of study that I considered though
I do hydrogeology, so not exactly there but adjacent. TBH, the whole struggle sesh feels like the person responsibility side of climate change. Like, yeah, its technically true, but you couldn't do in a century what the Army Corps of Engineers did for shits and giggles in a week.
On the flip side, there's no real reason for most people to fuck with river rocks in the first place, so just like, don't? Also, I have a feeling the biology side is more significant - a lot of stuff lives under river rocks.
Hello geology field comrade!
Yes it’s the biology side that is much more severely impacted. Of course we know that individuals are only responsible for a minuscule percent of the total damage done to these sensitive ecosystems, but the main difference is that the places people ARE out there stacking rocks aren’t the dredged coal barge channels in the Allegheny river that are long dead, it’s the places we’ve specifically set aside to be refuges for surviving species. In these cases, there is directly measurable impacts on species diversity and density where areas are frequented by visitors. A striking and sad example is Smoky Mountain NP, which has quite literally the highest density of salamander species on the planet. Of the 30 species in the park, 10 are majorly threatened by water condition changes resulting in accelerated spread of disease, TDS, O2 saturation, etc.
The biology side isn’t my specialty either, but you and I both know how quickly conditions can be changed, especially in small waterways
Great Smoky Mountains is an especially rough one. One of the most otherwise untouched areas of the country exposed to huge tourism. They'll get too close to a moose one of these days :inshallah:
But really, the rest of the Blue Ridge Parkway is just as pretty and much less crowded. People need to go visit Doughton Park or something