Cottonwood Creek Sediment Budget

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The goal of the project is to develop a sediment budget for Cottonwood Creek based upon geomorphological data from 1939 to present; quantify spatial and temporal characteristics of sediment supply, storage, and transport in the system, and to identify the effects of sediment transport dynamics on perceived channel and watershed changes. The project will include the collection of needed additional data; and synthesis of currently available data and the collected data needed to complete the sediment budget and answer the questions posed below. A comprehensive synthesis of previously existing, in addition to supplemental, data would be conducted incorporating the most current geomorphic analysis methods. The interpretation would call on cross-disciplinary expertise and will target specific questions of practical interest to local stakeholders such as: 1) How “stable” is the stream channel given historic and current natural conditions and land management?; 2) What roles do in-channel islands play and how might the practice of moving these islands affect the upstream and downstream channel and habitat conditions?; 3) Is current channel configuration a limiting factor to aquatic or terrestrial organisms of concern?; 4) Is the channel instability due to the amount of aggregate being removed by gravel mining?; and 5) Are current land use practices affecting the sediment budget in such a way as to create channel instability, and if so, how? The main concern is the channel instability of the lower watershed and how the bed material budget may be affecting channel response to differing flow events.

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