ESM 234: River Systems

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ESM 234 River Systems

• Tom Dunne
• tdunne_at_bren.ucsb.edu
• Tel [phone]
• Lectures 1000 1115 am Mondays and Wednesday
• Office hours by appointment and when the office
  door is open (Bren 3510)
• After class is a predictable time to catch me
• TA Lee Harrison,
• Ph.D. Candidate in Earth Science Dept.,
  Consultant,
• Labs at 5 750 pm Wednesdays, Bren Computer lab.

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Course description

• Hydrologic and geomorphic background of
  environmental management problems concerning
  large river systems.
• Analysis of the processes of flooding,
  sedimentation, and morphological change in
  channels, floodplains, deltas, and alluvial fans.
  Effects of climate, land use and engineering.
• Practice in analyzing management problems
  associated with large rivers and their
  floodplains, including a California field
  exercise. Report writing on results
• Practice in using simulation models to analyze
  environmental management problems in river
  systems Report writing on results.

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Syllabus

• Jan 8 River valleys as habitat for humans and
  their management problems
• Jan 10 River valleys as habitat for more
  charismatic species. Geological and ecological
  conceptions of large rivers
• Jan 10 Lab assignment on river management
  problems
• Jan 17 Flow regimes
• Description
• statistical prediction
• deterministic prediction
• Jan 17 Lab assignment on basin flow prediction
• Jan 19 Santa Clara River field trip 800 am 2
  pm

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• Jan 22 Managed flow regimes
• flow regulation
• inter-basin water transfers
• Jan 24 Flood regimes
• generation processes and controls
• deterministic prediction
• emerging forms of prediction
• Jan 29 Flood regimes
• statistical analysis and probabilistic prediction
• historical and paleohistorical reconstruction
• Jan 31 Flood regimes
• flood routing and prediction of inundation
• remote sensing and other forms of inundation
  predictions
• Jan 31 Lab assignment on river hydraulics and
  flood routing

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• Feb 5 Sedimentation sources and storage of
  sediment
• Feb 7 Sediment transport processes
• Feb 12 Sediment transport predictions
• Feb 14 Sediment transport and channel
  sedimentation modeling
• Feb 14 Lab assignment on sediment transport and
  routing
• Feb 21 Flood regimes impacts of floods
• Feb 26 Flood regimes flood risk management

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• Feb 28 Flood regimes effects of dams and
  reservoirs
• Feb 28 Lab/field assignment on river channel
  management
• Mar 5 River channel form and behavior
• Mar 7 Floodplains, deltas and estuaries
• Mar 12 Management of sedimentation
• Mar 14 River restoration

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Evaluation scheme

• Five reports on problems assigned in lab
• One web research
• Three computer modeling exercises
• One analysis of a field problem in river
  management (requires attendance at field trip, 8
  am-2 pm on Friday Jan 19).
• Grading based on thoroughness of analysis and
  effectiveness of writing.

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Suggested Reading (Univ. Bookstore)

• Jeffrey F. Mount, California Rivers and Streams
  The Conflict Between Fluvial Process and Land
  Use, Univ. of California Press, 1995 (paperback).
• A. Robert, River Processes an introduction to
  fluvial dynamics, Oxford Univ. Press, 2003
  (paperback).
• Ill send you other stuff electronically

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The Real Books on Big Rivers

• Sanche de Gramont (1975) The Strong Brown God
  The story of the Niger River, Hart, Davis,
  MacGibbon, London, 350 pp.
• Bates (1868?) A Naturalist on the River Amazon
• Alan Moorehead, The White Nile
• Alan Moorehead, The Blue Nile
• Peter Forbath, (1977) The River Congo, Harpers
  Rowe, New York
• Joseph Conrad (1923) Heart of Darkness, New York,
• Charles Greer (1979) Water Management in the
  Yellow River Basin of China, Univ. of Texas
  Press, Austin, 174 pp.

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• V.S. Naipaul (1979) A Bend in the River, Knopf,
  New York
• Mark Twain Life on the Mississippi
• John Hersey A Single Pebble (Yangzte)
• M. Goulding, N.J.H. Smith, and D.J. Mahar (1995)
  Floods of Fortune Ecology and Economy along the
  Amazon
• J. M. Barry (1997) Rising Tide The great
  Mississippi flood of 1927 and how it changed
  America, Simon Schuster
• J. Stine, Mixing of the Waters, Deep as it comes
  (1927 flood in the Mississippi delta), Univ.
  Arkansas Press
• M. Childs (1982) Mighty Mississippi biography of
  a river, Ticknor Fields, New York, 204 p.
• R. Kelley (1989) Battling the Inland Sea floods,
  public policy, and the Sacramento Valley, Univ.
  California Press, Berkeley.
• Peter Hessler, River Town two years on the
  Yangtze

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Large River Systems

• Large?
• Rivers too big to be impacted by most land
  transformation caused by humans. Watershed
  Analysis, ESM 235, covers smaller rivers.
• Controls on their behavior are mainly
• physiographic (i.e. driven by global tectonics
  and postglacial geological history)
• hydroclimatological (driven by global climate)
• land-sea level changes near mouth
• engineering within and near the channel
• Continental-scale rivers down to regional rivers
  larger than a few 1000 km2.
• Our field study sites will be the Santa Clara R.
  (4000 km2), Sacramento R. ( 70,000 km2), San
  Joaquin (82880) km2)

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River Systems?

• Not just the channel, but
• whole basin
• channel network
• valley floor
• estuary or delta
• lakes, if present (natural and artificial)
• River systems comprise features that have
  enormous social and ecological significance.
• The alluvial lowlands of large rivers are foci of
  settlement for vast human populations sustained
  by water supply, fertile soils, and ease of land
  and water transport.

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General Principles

• River systems are complex systems, through which
  are focused irregular fluxes of water and mobile
  terrestrial materials derived from the
  lithosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and
  technosphere.
• The dynamics of the transport, storage, and
  interactions of these materials creates channel
  and valley-floor environments with which the
  river continually interacts, creating certain
  functions and environmental conditions.
• The resulting functions and environments change
  both gradually and episodically due to both
  external forcings and internal dynamics.

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General Principles

• Ecological changes (including human exploitation)
  therefore include both successional changes and
  perturbations of various intensities, which may
  re-set or replace the succession.
• The continual creation results in spatial and
  temporal complexity (rather than a single
  continuum of environments linked by transport.)
• Differences among river systems in the relative
  strengths of gradual and episodic change result
  in differences of complexity and function.
  Affects transferability of information.

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Large rivers have histories (and face futures) of
environmental change

• The continental-scale river systems of Earth
  represent some of the largest and most dynamic
  environmental units on the planet
• They express the results of global change, as
  indicated by the elemental and isotopic records
  of past environmental variations such as
• ice age-age conditions, other climatic
  fluctuations,
• vegetation change,
• human settlement found in alluvial and deltaic
  sediments.

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Large rivers have histories (and face futures) of
environmental change

• Environmental records indicate how large river
  systems work and how they change
• Brought to societys attention when Hurricane
  Katrina struck the Mississippi Delta
• Similar acknowledgment (last week) about the
  Sacramento R. floodplain and California-Bay
  Delta
• Governments and other large, complex management
  systems with long-term commitments narrow
  interests have difficulties acknowledging
  evidence of change and its attendant
  uncertainties.
• They tend to resist the idea that there is any
  useful understanding of environmental processes.

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• Thus, large river valleys present some enduring,
  refractory problems of environmental management,
  which societies must control or adjust to.
• In class, we will review examples of such
  management issues, which you need to prepare
  yourselves to participate in. Examples
• Colorado River floods and sedimentation below
  Glen Canyon Dam
• California streamflows
• Everglades Restoration
• Anoxic marine zone off the mouth of the
  Mississippi River
• Flood hazard management along Lower Mississippi
  River
• International conflict over water rights and
  development plans on Nile River
• Aral Sea
• CALFED San Francisco Bay-Delta Ecosystem
  Restoration Program

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Typical River Problems to Manage Colorado R.
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Typical River Problems to Manage California
streamflows
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Typical River Problems to Manage Everglades
New York Times
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Typical River Problems to Manage Gulf of Mexico
Dead Zone and Mississippi R. contaminants
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Typical River Problems to Manage New Orleans
Flood Hazard
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New Orleans flood riskNYT, 2002
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New Orleans Flood RiskNYT, 2002
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Nile R. basin upstream flow use and plans for
diversion to the Western Desert
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Typical River Problems to Manage Global
disruption of river flow regimes
C. J. Vorosmarty et al, Humans transforming the
global water system, EOS Transaction, 85(4),
509-514, 2004.
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Typical River Problems to Manage Aral Sea inflow
diversions
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Aral Sea
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News
California begins to restore its rivers.
Waits for Bren students.
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Bay-Delta watershed
Watershed for the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta
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Bay-Delta location
Geographic scope of problem identification
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CalFed
Restore ecosystem health and improve water
management in the Bay-Delta system
Increase reliability of water supplies
Improve water quality
Improve aquatic and terrestrial habitats
Strengthen levee system
At-risk species
Introduced species
Habitats
Ecological processes
Aquatic toxicity
Harvestable species
Large expanses of wetlands in C. Valley
Increase freely meandering rivers
Many river restoration actions
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Regional perspective differing priorities
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Program perspective
Restore ecosystem health and improve water
management in the Bay-Delta system
Increase reliability of water supplies
Improve water quality
Improve aquatic and terrestrial habitats
Strengthen levee system
At-risk species
Introduced species
Habitats
Ecological processes
Aquatic toxicity
Harvestable species
Large expanses of wetlands in C. Valley
Increase freely meandering rivers
Many river restoration actions
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River Restoration
River restoration

• Altering the form and behavior (or structure and
  function) of river channels and floodplains,
  often with the intention of increasing the
  production and biodiversity of organisms.
• Improving water quality
• Ensuring the safety of communities

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Sacramento R.
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Lower Sacramento River
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Sacramento River
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Sacramento R. bars
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Merced River Aerial
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Merced Robinson reach before restoration
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• River systems comprise features that have
  enormous social and ecological significance.
• The alluvial lowlands of large rivers are foci of
  settlement for vast human populations sustained
  by water supply, fertile soils, and ease of land
  and water transport (Read Wittfogels "Hydraulic
  Civilizations" "The Earth As Transformed by
  Human Action", etc.)
• Throughout Earth history, these alluvial storages
  have sequestered sediment, carbon, and other
  biogeochemical materials, and they have generated
  intricate and dynamic habitats for plants and
  animals.
• The continental-scale river systems focus the
  runoff, sediment and chemical yields of large
  fractions of the continents into valleys, coastal
  zones, and epicontinental seas where they affect
  marine chemistry, biological productivity, and
  susceptibility to freezing near-shore
  sedimentation and landforms and other
  environmental conditions that influence human
  affairs.
• The effects of basin-wide climatic, geological,
  and biological features on the yields of water
  and transported materials ensure that
  continental-scale processes such as
  land-atmosphere interactions, mountain building
  and sedimentation, and human activities are
  focused into narrow zones along alluvial valleys
  and coastal zones which are the most vital parts
  of the planet to human settlement and to a large
  part of the rest of the biosphere.

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• Humans use these same rivers for water supply
  (consumptive and nonconsumptive), waste disposal,
  navigation, waste disposal, boundary demarcation,
  recreation (but not many of the worlds riparian
  population get to use them for this!), power
  generation, fisheries, and lately the
  maintenance of ecosystem values.
• Continental-scale river basins focus even subtle
  global environmental changes, such as ENSO
  events, small changes relative to sea level, or
  anthropogenic alterations of sediment and
  chemical fluxes into narrow zones (valley floors,
  estuarine, deltaic, and nearshore environments),
  which are heavily populated by humans or contain
  great biological diversity. Human activities are
  thus impacted significantly by changes in water
  quantity (e.g. floods, droughts, navigability,
  hydroelectric power) and quality (e.g. salinity,
  sediments, excess nutrients, toxic pollutants),
  as well as by physical changes in the valley
  floor and channel environments themselves.