I used my drone to get aerial imagery of the Dog River with my Norwich University students in Geology 110. Here they are collecting data and enjoying a warm September day. They are testing hypotheses that they derived on the relationship between river water depth, water velocity, and sediment size. And they got to use the drone images in their lab write-up!

Many thanks to NSF, Earth Cube, UNAVCO, and all the individuals who helped put on the workshop “Advancing the Analysis of High Resolution Topography.” It was great to share our work in this field, learn some new techniques, and discuss future directions for LiDAR, drones, and imagery. Truly wonderful.

It was a coincidence that in one session we used one of my previous field sites to practice PIV – particle image velocimetry.  In 2003, I measured stream flow emanating from several glaciers in the Dry Valleys in Antarctica. In the workshop, we used repeat LiDAR datasets of one of those glaciers, the Canada Glacier in Taylor Valley. Here are some of the images and results from our analysis. The bottom left (grey image with green arrows) shows  the direction and velocity of ice movement, that I derived using particle tracking code in MatLab.

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Really happy to get this flume experiment running at the Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory. Such a rich history of river research at this place, and it’s a treasure trove of flumes for geologists, engineers, biologists and more. The lab is right on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.

I’m looking at the effect of undulating bedrock below rivers, The undulating bedrock affects changes in stream power and the location of bedrock vs. alluvial channels. It was pretty nice to make a bedrock valley in an afternoon, and to make a flood whenever I wanted by turning the dial.

This house was up above the level of the flood waters. However, the riverbank washed away, and the house plunged into the river. There’s a flood control dam upstream that prevented the floodplain from flooding, but it doesn’t prevent the river for migrating.  Classic example of how homes and other structures might be safe from getting flooded by rising waters, but they may not be safe from the geomorphic processes during floods. This concept of high waters versus erosive waters is key to my work on flood hazards.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/10/30/house-washed-away-new-hampshire-river/2z9nl5sRBIHX9AQytx9DWP/story.html?event=event25&s_campaign=sm_gp&hl=en-US

Here are two recent videos of my work The first was produced by GCTV

http://gctv.org/videos/river-restoration

http://gctv.org/videos/river-restoration

and the second was produced by WGBY. Many thanks to Dave Fraser and Karen Shapiro for helping show our work!

So fun to watch students explore the stream table. Reminded me of my days as a jr. high and high school science teacher. I spent an afternoon with a two 7th grade science classes, and students simulated sea level rise and fall, floods, terraces, floodplains, and building too close to a stream bank.

students at Greenfield Elemenatary work with a stream table

During my PhD, I worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on ways to determine the Ordinary High Water Mark…which is incredibly important for  the Clean Water Act. Basically, the OHWM determines which areas in and next to rivers are subject to the Clean Water Act and which areas are not. The broad question: Can we use modeling to delineate the boundaries of the Ordinary High Water Mark?

Here are links to the three papers I wrote for the Army Corps addressing that question:

Integrating hydrologic modeling, hydraulic modeling, and field data for Ordinary High Water Mark delineation

The benefits and limitations of hydraulic modeling for Ordinary High Water Mark

Hydrologic modeling and flood frequency analysis for Ordinary High Water Mark delineation

UMass Amherst Research to Identify Northeast River Corridors

http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-amherst-research-identify-northeast

Just spent an amazing 10 days at the Saint Anthony Fall Laboratory in Minneapolis for the Summer Institute on Earth Surface Dynamics. Such a fantastic experience sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Here’s a photo of Saint Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River and the Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory, which is the white and brown building next to the river. They run some of the big river right through the lab to give water to scores of fake rivers, fake deltas, and fake landscapes.