These processes can cause nutrient enrichment and increased primary and secondary production downstream from the pond and increasing nutrient retention time and enhanced invertebrate production in the pond . These factors help increase salmon growth and survival, and also help improve water quality. Beaver ponds increase the surface to volume ratio of the impounded area, which can result in increased summer temperatures . Beaver ponds can also cause increased storage of water in the banks and flood plains, and this increases the water table, enhances summer flows, adds cold water during summer, and causes more even stream flows throughout the year. By storing spring and summer storm run-off, beaver ponds help to reduce downstream flooding and the damage from rapid increases in stream flows .
Beavers also help shape riparian habitat.
Beaver ponds increase the surface area of water several hundred times and thereby enhance the overall riparian habitat development . They also enhance vegetation growth by increasing the amount of groundwater for use by riparian plants and wetland areas. The presence of beaver can have both positive and negative influence on salmon habitat, but on the whole, their presence is considered of great benefit to both water quality and salmon, particularly juvenile coho salmon and cutthroat trout, and to many other species of wildlife and invertebrates.