My collaborators, Robert Meade and John Moody of the USGS, have surveyed the river annually since 1975. The incredible data available for Powder River are unique because they can be used to test general models of how river channels create their cross-sectional and planform morphology.

For example, the data from Powder River are probably the only observations available in the world that can be used to evaluate the models I am developing to evaluate river restoration stategies in the mid-Atlantic region.

The methods used at Powder River involve a combination of field studies (e.g.surveying, stratigraphy, observations of velocity during high flows) and numerical modeling.

Interesting results to date include:

1. Documentation of cycles of channel expansion and recovery that last several decades.

   The river erodes and enlarges its channel during floods with recurrence intervals of 20 years or more. During subsequent decades of lower discharges, the channel narrows as sediment is deposited on low-lying floodplains that grow at the channel margins.

   
   
2. Documentation of flood-plain forming processes following expansive floods.

   The stratigraphy and development of these floodplains is quite different from the textbook models of floodplain formation on meandering rivers.

My Research Interests

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Last Updated 11/97