CAREER:Quantifying the response of rivers and floodplains to changes in climate and land use

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A thorough understanding of how rivers respond to changes in climate and land use is fundamental to decrease impact from flooding, to design and maintain structures such as water intakes and bridges, to protect and restore river ecosystems, and to manage water resources in general. This research is specifically designed to quantify how river channels and the adjoining floodplains respond to natural and anthropogenic changes in climate and land use. Educational aspects of this project are designed with formal learning activities (field work at the Congaree National Park, design and construction of experimental installations for education, and the introduction of a new undergraduate level course on sustainable river engineering practices into the curriculum) to build an educational environment using collaborative learning pedagogy in which students learn how to work in a diverse, interdisciplinary, and international group. These education aspects are targeted to prepare the next generation of engineers to tackle scientific and professional problems associated with water resources management. Informal learning activities, such as the creation of an interactive digital platform for the Congaree National Park and summer camps for high school students, will inform the general public on the effects that humans and a changing climate can have on the environment in which they live in. The main scientific objective of the research is to advance knowledge on river morphodynamics, and enable quantitative prediction of changes in channel geometry and pattern observed in the field. It is hypothesized that the mode of bed material (sand or gravel) transport and the exchange of sediment between the river and the floodplain are key processes controlling river morphodynamics at spatial scales ranging from tens to hundreds of kilometers and at temporal scales ranging from a few decades to several centuries. This hypothesis will be tested with laboratory experiments to gain insight into the role of sediment grain size on channel morphology, mathematical modeling to provide physics-based quantitative tools on river morphodynamics, and fieldwork to characterize the annual variability of channel geometry on a reach of the Congaree River in the Congaree River National Park, USA, that has been responding to changes in hydrology and land use since the 1700s. Additional field sites that are being affected by human-induced changes in land use will also be considered.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.