Change in event-scale hydrologic response in two urbanizing watersheds of the Great Lakes St Lawrence Basin 1969–2010

Trudeau, M.P.; Richardson, Murray

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.04.031

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…A sample of three floods from 2015 shows that Wilket Creek typically has a higher flood peak flow depth than Ganatsekaigon Creek, with more rapidly rising and falling limbs on the storm hydrographs (Figure 3). These observations match what has been found in other studies of hydrologic change in urban watersheds both locally (Barr, 2017; Trudeau & Richardson, 2015; Trudeau & Richardson, 2016) and around the world (Bledsoe & Watson, 2001; Chin, 2001; Walsh et al, 2006). Wilket Creek also shows signs of a daily flow cycle, with higher flows in the daytime likely linked with cross‐connected sanitary sewers or other urban activities such as lawn watering.…”

Section: Study Sitessupporting

confidence: 90%

Bedload Sediment Transport Regimes of Semi‐alluvial Rivers Conditioned by Urbanization and Stormwater Management

Papangelakis

MacVicar

Ashmore

2019

Water Resources Research

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Watershed urbanization and stormwater management (SWM) alter the hydrologic processes of rivers. Although differences have been documented in channel morphology and sediment yield pre-and posturbanization, little is known about how the modified hydrology affects grain-scale bedload transport dynamics. This study aims to characterize the bedload sediment transport regime of three rivers with different hydrologic settings: rural, urban with no SWM, and urban with peak-shaving SWM. The rivers are "semi-alluvial," characterized by an alluvial layer over a cohesive till. Bedload transport was monitored using tracer stones over 3 years. Hydrograph characteristics of the streams fit with what is expected in urban and SWM systems, and the rural stream has an episodic transport regime typical of gravel-bed rivers. Entrainment thresholds are not detectably impacted by the semi-alluvial bed cover, but travel lengths of grains relative to their size are longer than in alluvial gravel-bed streams. Downstream displacement rates of particles up to the D 90 are accelerated in the urban river due to more frequent mobilization rather than increased event-based travel lengths and may explain channel enlargement. SWM decreases the mobility and travel lengths of particles below those in the rural system, which is combined with channel narrowing, and the loss of bed forms suggests a shift toward a competence-limited transport regime. This new regime is a result of reduced shear stresses that are insufficient to transport coarse material. This study presents empirical evidence of the effects of watershed urbanization and SWM on bedload transport and provides recommendations for process-based river management strategies.Plain Language Summary Most studies on the effects of urbanization on river systems focus on linking the extent of urbanization to channel form or total sediment yield. Few studies apply process-level sediment transport theory to urban environments. This study compares how coarse sediment (bedload) is transported through three streams: a rural river, an urban river with no stormwater management, and an urban river with stormwater management. The glacial geology of the area introduces a unique sediment composition (semi-alluvial) that increases the transport distance of mobilized bedload. The speed of bedload sediment displacement was increased in the urban stream because of more frequent floods, which can explain the enlarged channel dimensions observed. Although stormwater management was successful at reducing the displacement speed of coarse sediment, it resulted in a narrow channel, coarser bed material, and a loss of natural bed variation important for aquatic habitats. Results from this study can be used to improve urban river management strategies that aim to reduce erosion and promote ecologic health.

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Section: Study Sitessupporting

confidence: 90%

Bedload Sediment Transport Regimes of Semi‐alluvial Rivers Conditioned by Urbanization and Stormwater Management

Papangelakis

MacVicar

Ashmore

2019

Water Resources Research

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“…Both event runoff coefficients and time scales exhibited seasonality due to seasonal variations of soil moisture and rainfall attributes (Merz & Blöschl, 2009a;Rodríguez-Blanco et al, 2012) and to the effect of snowmelt (Gaál et al, 2012). At long time scale their changes are often attributed to land use changes (e.g., urbanization, deforestation, and wildfire), especially in small catchments (e.g., Andréassian, 2003;Martin et al, 2012;Trudeau & Richardson, 2015). However, changes of the climatic forcing (e.g., precipitation and temperature) might also affect the event runoff response (Ajami et al, 2017;Dumanski et al, 2015;Sawicz et al, 2014).…”

Section: Citationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Controls on Rainfall‐Runoff Events: 1. Time Series‐Based Event Separation and Temporal Dynamics of Event Runoff Response in Germany

Tarasova

Basso

Zink

et al. 2018

Water Resources Research

101

143

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Analyzing a response of catchments to rainfall inputs allows for deeper insights on the mechanisms of runoff generation at catchment scale. In this study an automated time series‐based event separation procedure consisting of available base flow separation, runoff event identification, and rainfall attribution methods and of a novel iterative procedure for the adjustment of thresholds used to identify single‐peak components of multiple‐peak events is proposed. Event runoff coefficient, time scale, rise time, and peak discharge of more than 220,000 identified rainfall‐runoff events are then used to analyze dynamics of event runoff response in 185 catchments at multiple temporal scales. In mountainous catchments with poor storage event runoff response is strongly controlled by the characteristics of rainfall and is generated by event‐fed saturation or infiltration excess. A distinct switch between saturated and unsaturated states occurs in these catchments. A weak relation between rainfall and runoff event properties is instead observed in lowland and hilly catchments with substantial storage, where a gradual transformation between functioning states occurs and the response is driven by preevent saturation. The seasonality of their event characteristics is governed by the contribution of snowmelt and the seasonality of the aridity index rather than of rainfall properties. Long‐term changes of total precipitation amount alone do not explain season‐specific long‐term changes of event characteristics that are rather consistent with changes of seasonal indicators of the wetness state. The effects of land use changes are detectable only in a few cases and display themselves mostly in the characteristic response time of catchments.

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“…All hydrologic data used were during the post-freshet year (May 26th to November 15th) to reduce statistical noise introduced by variable winter melt conditions that occur within the study area. Preparation of the hydrologic data, matched to hourly rainfall data, was reported in Trudeau and Richardson (2015). Development of UP estimates, using historical aerial photographs, was reported in Trudeau and Richardson (2016).…”

Section: Databasementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, it would be interesting to research interactions of flow acceleration with UP or watershed size to assess whether the fish richness relationship with flow acceleration differs at low levels of UP (e.g., less than 10%) or watershed area. Event flow acceleration is higher in wetter years (Trudeau & Richardson, 2015); it would also be interesting to research whether rainfall contributes to inter-annual variation in fish richness in urbanized watersheds.…”

Section: Analyses Using the Recent Databasementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This study was the third phase of research using this high temporal resolution hydrologic dataset in this study area. In the first phase, temporal analyses for two of the watersheds (the Don and Humber Rivers) established that event-scale hydrologic trends were detectable within the study area over four decades (Trudeau & Richardson, 2015). The second phase analyzed changes across spatial scales of watershed size and percent urbanization using 27 watersheds within the study area (Trudeau and Richardson, 2016).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Associations of event‐scale flow hydrology with fish richness in urbanizing Canadian watersheds of Lake Ontario

Trudeau¹,

Morin

2017

Ecohydrology

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Urbanization is associated with declines in aquatic biodiversity and changes to flow regimes. This empirical research examined high temporal resolution (15 min) hydrologic records and associations with fish species richness in eight river systems in theToronto region, Canada. The dataset spanned approximately five decades and covered the annual post-freshet period to mid-November. The high-temporal resolution flow records allowed estimation of flow acceleration (a measure of the rate of change in flow) in response to rain events. Maximum rising limb event flow acceleration and skew in instantaneous runoff explained a higher proportion of variation than percent urban land use in empirical models with long-term fish records. Models fit using only the most recent decade of records did not produce the same results, likely indicating that analyses of flow with fish diversity require sufficient range in flow conditions for the statistical signals to be detected. Historic fish data are difficult to obtain and pose analytical challenges due to bias and inconsistent collection methods. Despite the data limitations, the study results point to the need for more research into potential causal factors contributing to negative fish richness in urbanizing watercourses with periods of high flow acceleration.

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Change in event-scale hydrologic response in two urbanizing watersheds of the Great Lakes St Lawrence Basin 1969–2010

Cited by 9 publications

References 50 publications

Bedload Sediment Transport Regimes of Semi‐alluvial Rivers Conditioned by Urbanization and Stormwater Management

Bedload Sediment Transport Regimes of Semi‐alluvial Rivers Conditioned by Urbanization and Stormwater Management

Exploring Controls on Rainfall‐Runoff Events: 1. Time Series‐Based Event Separation and Temporal Dynamics of Event Runoff Response in Germany

Associations of event‐scale flow hydrology with fish richness in urbanizing Canadian watersheds of Lake Ontario

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