Part 9
IN THIS SECTION
Dealing with ghosts in your riverscape.
Past land use activities present a challenge for process-based riverscape restoration. It can be difficult to identify the source of disturbance, the impacts on the current riverscape, and thus, what a suite of appropriate restoration actions may be. Through interviewing experts in historical ecology and geomorphic reconstructions, we will demonstrate the difficulties, but also the value from a process-based restoration perspective, of developing this understanding.
0:00 Introduction with Brian Cluer, fluvial geomorphologist, NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service West Coast Region
02:02 Case Study: 50 years of misdiagnosing floodplains
featuring Dorothy Merritts, Professor of Geomorphology, Franklin and Marshall College
When is a “natural channel” actually a misdiagnosed incised reservoir deposit? Listen to Dorthy Merritts uncover the historic floodplains of the Piedmont and Coastal Plain of the East Coast. Centuries of land use and thousands of low-head mill dams transformed riverscapes in ways that still echo in our language and our thinking.
32:12 Case Study: Rail based logging ghosts
featuring Damon Holzer, cartographer, NOAA
Was there logging before forest roads? Follow Damon Holzer's unearthing of the ghost of logging past. Rail based logging was the rule from early 1900s into the 1950s, but the impacts of the transport system remain unresolved to this day.
37:32 Case Study: historical river wetland corridors in California
featuring Sean Baumgarten, environmental scientist, San Francisco Estuary Institute Resilient Landscapes Program
What did California look like when it was home to more salmon than people? Watch Sean Baumgarten peel back the dikes and return the water to former river wetland corridors of most California valleys.
52:30 Case Study: learning from new tools to better diagnose the root problems
featuring Paul Powers, fisheries biologist, US Forest Service
Were these riverscapes really always like this? Explore with Paul Powers the insights generated by riverscape-scale mapping and analysis of anthropogenic impacts on floodplain topography.
1:02:12 Reflection and conclusion with Brian Cluer and Chris Jordan