Plants help to reduce water runoff and soil erosion, both of which affect the health of streams and rivers by impacting water quality.
Soil erosion increases the silt load in the water, which can smother living organisms, particularly plants and invertebrate species. Runoff water can carry pollutants, particularly pesticides, and herbicides from agricultural land.
Landscape 1 (streams cutting through small farms with a variety of crop types and natural vegetation buffers between the fields and the streams) would be the best quality, followed by Landscape 2 (a large floodplain area covered in lowland forests and swamps full of emergent vegetation, with small streams cutting through the area) and Landscape 3 (an urban housing development where the streams are surrounded by emergent vegetation).
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