The riparian zone paradigm suggests that vegetation along perennial streams on sloped sites with good soils improves water quality and aquatic biodiversity. In the Ellen Brook catchment in Western Australia, riparian vegetation is situated along coloured (high DOC) intermittent streams.  While poor soils, lack of slope and surface flow limits nutrient removal capacity in these flat, sandy systems, this study has previously shown that riparian vegetation improves soil condition, nutrient uptake and storage. But what other benefits does riparian vegetation provide, particularly for intermittent streams? A survey of in-stream macroinvertebrate communities across vegetated and unvegetated stretches of intermittent and perennial streams was undertaken. Results indicated that flow regime, colour (DOC) and whether stream segments were vegetated had a comparable effect (Global R= ~0.4, P <0.001). However, pairwise comparisons showed that flow regime (R= 0.513, P <0.001) had a stronger influence then stream colour (R= 0.283, P <0.001). The presence of riparian vegetation had the largest effect in perennial streams (R= 0.537, P <0.001). In intermittent streams, flow regime was the driving factor and not riparian vegetation, possibly due to degradation of riparian vegetation at these sites. The results from this study question the fundamentals of the riparian vegetation paradigm, particularly in relation to the functionality of riparian vegetation in nutrient reduction and its contribution to stream invertebrate diversity in sandy intermittent streams.