Analysis of River Restoration Hydrologic Function: Meadows as Macro-Hyporheic Zones

Gorelick0337393重建被破坏的生态系统的新兴努力往往涉及河流恢复。 这种水文生态干预的目的是使每一个退化的陆地环境恢复到更自然的状态。 尽管近年来在各种环境中已经开始了河流恢复，但很少有工具来跟踪，量化和评估水文变化的空间和时间。 该提案涉及退化草地和河流恢复已进行模仿自然环境中的羽毛河流域在北方加州的比较分析。 羽毛河流域是目标，因为它是可访问的，并包含单一的河流草地，其中的渠道已被重新定位，作为恢复工作的一部分。 剩下的退化草地有深深切割的河道和干燥的草地植被。 我们的目标是开发一种方法来定量评估河流恢复小草甸。 我们计划进行实地考察，收集遥感数据，以描述我们比较集中每个草甸状态的关键方面。 我们将集中在河岸带界面，河流和含水层之间以及植被和相连的渗流潜水带之间发生质量和能量交换。 我们的分析将依赖于描述水和能量通量的基于物理的模拟模型。 我们的预期贡献是开发和测试一套可转移的措施，可用于1）评估河流恢复项目，2）了解恢复和退化草地环境中水文过程的关键变化， 3)至少为成功的水文生态恢复提供一些水文科学基础。 为了加强推广，我们已经开始与羽毛河协调资源管理小组（FRCRM），一个非营利性的公共利益集团，由23个流域利益相关者组成，成立于1985年的互动。

Gorelick0337393The emerging effort to rebuild spoiled ecosystems often involves river restoration. Such hydroecological intervention aims to return each degraded terrestrial environment to a more natural state. Although river restoration has been initiated in various environments in recent years, there are few tools to track, quantifying, and evaluate hydrologic changes over space and time. This proposal involves a comparative analysis of degraded meadows and those in which river restoration has been conducted to mimic the natural environment in the Feather River watershed in northern California. The Feather River watershed was targeted because it is accessible and contains single-river meadows where the channels have been relocated as part of restoration efforts. The remaining degraded meadows have deeply incised river channels and dry grassland vegetation. Our goal is to develop an approach to quantitatively assess river restoration in small meadows. We plan to conduct fieldwork and collect remote sensing data to characterize the key aspects of the state of each meadow in our comparison set. We will focus on the riparian-zone interface where mass and energy exchanges occur between the river and aquifer as well as between vegetation and the connected vadose-phreatic zone. Our analysis will rely on physically-based simulation models that describe water and energy fluxes. Our intended contribution is to develop and test a set of transferable measures that might be used to 1) assess river-restoration projects, 2) gain an understanding of the key changes in hydrologic processes in restored and degraded meadow environments, and 3) provide at least some of the hydrological-science basis for successful hydroecological restoration. To enhance outreach, we have initiated interaction with the Feather River Coordinated Resource Management Group (FRCRM), a non-profit public interest group consisting of 23 watershed stakeholders that was formed in 1985.