Geomorphology
Geomorphic understanding provides the foundation for developing process-based solutions to a wide variety of problems in watershed management, including endangered species protection, clean water directives, erosion risk assessment, watershed and regional planning, engineering design, landscape evaluation, and restoration and mitigation opportunities. At Stillwater Sciences, our experienced and well-regarded geomorphologists apply state-of-the-science techniques, such as:
- Geomorphic and geologic watershed mapping and interpretation
- Sediment source inventories and sediment budget determinations
- Historical records analyses and land use change impact assessments
- Stream flow and sediment entrainment and transport monitoring
- High-resolution flow velocity profiling
- Channel geometry and bed profile surveys
- Channel bed and subsurface sediment characterization including facies mapping
- Numerical modeling of sediment transport dynamics in sand- and gravel-bed rivers
- Numerical modeling of reservoir sediment deposition and stratification
- Physical modeling (flume) experiments
- Aquatic and estuarine habitat characterization and modeling
- Large wood assessments and budgets,
- Planning and designs for river restoration, gravel augmentation, instream habitat structure placement
- Strategic planning for dam removal
- Prescriptions for ecological high flow releases
- Designs for ecological high flow implementation
- Baseline and post-project monitoring and evaluation
These skills are applied to all aspects of the project process, including strategic planning, project orientation and conceptual model development, determination of current site conditions, interpretation of past site conditions, and prediction of future site conditions. We work closely with colleagues and teaming partners to provide interdisciplinary biophysical and biogeochemical answers that are targeted directly at client questions and priorities.
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Our geomorphologists have backgrounds in everything from basin-scale sediment budgets to fine sediment infiltration in spawning gravels.
Download an overview of our geomorphology services [pdf, 2M]
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Applications
Merced River Ranch: An integrated approach to restoration
To improve ecologic integrity for anadromous salmonids and riparian vegetation along the Merced River Ranch reach, this CALFED-funded project set out to restore fundamental geomorphic processes and floodplain connectivity. Over two years, Stillwater geomorphologists sampled, surveyed, mapped, and monitored channel geometry, bed sediment transport, and surface sediment to establish baseline habitat conditions. They then used a sediment transport model to scale the proposed channel and floodplain and determine appropriate instream flow hydraulics and corridor inundation frequencies under the regulated flow regime of the lower Merced River.
North Umpqua Hydroelectric Project: Sound stakeholder solutions
Stillwater scientists helped kickstart stalled negotiations during the North Umpqua Hydroelectric Project relicensing settlement-agreement process. To overcome the lack of spawning gravels available to Chinook salmon, some stakeholders proposed drawing down a project reservoir; salmon would then gain access to gravels that had accumulated at the reservoir’s head. Stillwater’s modeling, however, showed that these deposits would simply wash downstream. We proposed instead that large boulders be placed in the reach upstream of the reservoir. This placement created hydraulic conditions allowing the deposition of stable gravel patches ideal for spawning.