Mapping longitudinal stream connectivity in the North St. Vrain Creek watershed of Colorado

Wohl, Ellen; Rathburn, Sara L.; Chignell, Stephen M.; Garrett, Krista K.; Laurel, DeAnna; Livers, Bridget; Patton, Annette I.; Records, Rosemary M.; Richards, Mariah; Schook, Derek M.; Sutfin, Nicholas A.; Wegener, Pamela

doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2016.05.004

Cited by 46 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Current river restoration practices are typically spatially limited to small reaches of the stream, rather than designed with the entire watershed or river network in mind (Bernhardt & Palmer, 2011;Wohl et al, 2005). Longitudinal sediment connectivity (also referred to as sediment continuity) has been defined as the degree to which sediment is able to be transferred between river reaches (Heckmann et al, 2018;Hooke, 2003;Wohl et al, 2017). Constructed riffle-pool channels may lead to a disruption of longitudinal sediment connectivity by locally altering the hydraulic forces due to changes in slope, roughness, and channel dimensions (Heckmann et al, 2018;Kondolf et al, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Process‐based assessment of success and failure in a constructed riffle‐pool river restoration project

Papangelakis

MacVicar

2020

River Research & Apps

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Although there is increasing consensus that river restoration should focus on restoring processes rather than form, proven techniques to design and monitor projects for sediment transport processes are lacking. This study monitors bedload transport and channel morphology in a rural, an urban unrestored, and an urban restored reach. Objectives are to compare bedload transport regimes, assess the stability and self‐maintenance of constructed riffle‐pool sequences, and evaluate the impact of the project on coarse sediment continuity in the creek. Sediment tracking is done using radio frequency identification tracers and morphologic change is assessed from repeated cross‐section surveys. Mean annual velocity is used to quantify the average downstream velocity of tracers, defined as the mean overall tracer travel length divided by the total study duration. The channel reconstruction slows down the downstream velocity of particles in the D75 and D90 size classes, but does not significantly change the velocity of particles in the D50 size class or smaller. Surveys show that riffle features remain stable and that pool depths are maintained or deepened, while tracer paths match with what has been observed in natural riffle‐pools. However, the slowdown of coarse sediment and increase in channel slope may lead to future failures related to over‐steepening of the banks and a disruption in the continuity of sediment transport in the creek. This study demonstrates how bedload tracking and morphological surveys can be used to assess river restoration projects, and highlights the importance of incorporating coarse sediment connectivity into restoration design and monitoring.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Process‐based assessment of success and failure in a constructed riffle‐pool river restoration project

Papangelakis

MacVicar

2020

River Research & Apps

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“…The configuration and state of the system under consideration strongly influence the expression of connectivity (Gran and Czuba, 2017;Rice, 2017). Increasing landscape morphological complexity can correspond to decreasing connectivity (Baartman et al, 2013), for example, and segments of a river network with wider valley bottoms can produce longitudinal and lateral disconnectivity in fluxes (Fryirs, 2013;Wohl et al, 2017b). The state of the system includes the capacity for adjustment and proximity to thresholds, as well as location within an evolutionary trajectory or spatially within a larger system .…”

Section: Definition Referencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Structural and functional connectivity are tightly interwoven. Many studies focus on how the spatial template created by structural configuration interacts with variations in available energy to drive spatial and temporal fluctuations in functional connectivity (Jencso et al, 2009(Jencso et al, , 2010Jensco and McGlynn, 2011;Souza et al, 2016;Wohl et al, 2017b). Croke et al (2013) and Thompson et al (2016), for example, use longitudinal variations in valley-bottom configuration and the measured and modeled extent of floodplain inundation during an extreme flood to infer connectivity between channel and floodplain.…”

Section: Definition Referencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Connectivity as an emergent property of geomorphic systems

Wohl

Brierley

Cadol

et al. 2018

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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247

195

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Connectivity describes the efficiency of material transfer between geomorphic system components such as hillslopes and rivers or longitudinal segments within a river network. Representations of geomorphic systems as networks should recognize that the compartments, links, and nodes exhibit connectivity at differing scales. The historical underpinnings of connectivity in geomorphology involve management of geomorphic systems and observations linking surface processes to landform dynamics. Current work in geomorphic connectivity emphasizes hydrological, sediment, or landscape connectivity. Signatures of connectivity can be detected using diverse indicators that vary from contemporary processes to stratigraphic records or a spatial metric such as sediment yield that encompasses geomorphic processes operating over diverse time and space scales. One approach to measuring connectivity is to determine the fundamental temporal and spatial scales for the phenomenon of interest and to make measurements at a sufficiently large multiple of the fundamental scales to capture reliably a representative sample. Another approach seeks to characterize how connectivity varies with scale, by applying the same metric over a wide range of scales or using statistical measures that characterize the frequency distributions of connectivity across scales. Identifying and measuring connectivity is useful in basic and applied geomorphic research and we explore the implications of connectivity for river management. Common themes and ideas that merit further research include; increased understanding of the importance of capturing landscape heterogeneity and connectivity patterns; the potential to use graph and network theory metrics in analyzing connectivity; the need to understand which metrics best represent the physical system and its connectivity pathways, and to apply these metrics to the validation of numerical models; and the need to recognize the importance of low levels of connectivity in some situations. We emphasize the value in evaluating boundaries between components of geomorphic systems as transition zones and examining the fluxes across them to understand landscape functioning. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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“…The active and abandoned beaver meadows included in this study area are located above 2430 m, although Beaver and Cow Creeks did not have Pleistocene valley glaciers. In these unglaciated valleys, spatial variation in bedrock jointing causes longitudinal variation in valley geometry (Ehlen and Wohl, ; Wohl et al, ), but the beaver meadow sites are narrower than those in the glaciated valleys.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

The persistence of beaver‐induced geomorphic heterogeneity and organic carbon stock in river corridors

Laurel

Wohl

2018

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Beavers are widely recognized as ecosystem engineers for their ability to shape river corridors by building dams, digging small canals, and altering riparian vegetation. Through these activities, beavers create beaver meadows, which are segments of river corridor characterized by high geomorphic heterogeneity, attenuation of downstream fluxes, and biodiversity. We examine seven beaver meadows on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, USA with differing levels of beaver activity. We divide these sites into the four categories of active, partially active, recently abandoned (< 20 years), and long abandoned (> 30 years). We characterize geomorphic units within the river corridor and calculate metrics of surface geomorphic heterogeneity relative to category of beaver activity. We also use measures of subsurface geomorphic heterogeneity (soil moisture, soil depth, percent clay content, organic carbon concentration) to compare heterogeneity across beaver meadow categories. Finally, we calculate organic carbon stock within the upper 1.5 m of each meadow and compare these values to category of beaver activity. We find that surface geomorphic heterogeneity and mean soil moisture differ significantly only between active and long abandoned meadows, suggesting a non‐linear decrease with time following beaver abandonment of a meadow. Soil depth and organic carbon stock do not differ consistently in relation to category of beaver meadow, suggesting that larger‐scale geologic controls that foster deep floodplain soils can continue to maintain substantial organic carbon stocks after beavers abandon a meadow. These results also indicate that the effects of beaver ecosystem engineering can persist for nearly three decades after the animals largely abandon a river corridor. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Mapping longitudinal stream connectivity in the North St. Vrain Creek watershed of Colorado

Cited by 46 publications

References 49 publications

Process‐based assessment of success and failure in a constructed riffle‐pool river restoration project

Process‐based assessment of success and failure in a constructed riffle‐pool river restoration project

Connectivity as an emergent property of geomorphic systems

The persistence of beaver‐induced geomorphic heterogeneity and organic carbon stock in river corridors

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