Stream Restoration: Its Effects on Stream-Subsurface Water Interaction
Location
Eccles Conference Center
Event Website
http://water.usu.edu/
Start Date
3-28-2006 9:00 AM
End Date
3-28-2006 9:20 AM
Description
Channel restoration projects focus on restoring surface channel and floodplain features and seldom consider the rehabilitation of the subsurface environment. However, it is increasingly recognized that the stream hyporheic zone, a subsurface region of streamsubsurface water exchange, is an important component of the stream ecosystem. Streamsubsurface water exchange enhances the mass transfer of dissolved and particulate substances between a stream and the streambed, moderates the fluctuation of stream water temperature, provides habitat and spawning gravels for stream organisms, and the hyporheic zone can influence stream chemistry as a result of the transformation and retention of nutrients, organic matter and trace metals. Thus, recognition of hyporheic processes in stream restoration is important. Case studies conducted in urban and agricultural streams near Toronto revealed that the stream channel restoration projects induced both vertical and lateral stream-subsurface water interaction. However, the areas of biogeochemical transformation were limited to the zone near the water-sediment interface as oxygen and nitrate were depleted in a short distance, and the impact of hyporheic processes on stream ecosystem functioning was not considerably enhanced by the restoration projects.
Stream Restoration: Its Effects on Stream-Subsurface Water Interaction
Eccles Conference Center
Channel restoration projects focus on restoring surface channel and floodplain features and seldom consider the rehabilitation of the subsurface environment. However, it is increasingly recognized that the stream hyporheic zone, a subsurface region of streamsubsurface water exchange, is an important component of the stream ecosystem. Streamsubsurface water exchange enhances the mass transfer of dissolved and particulate substances between a stream and the streambed, moderates the fluctuation of stream water temperature, provides habitat and spawning gravels for stream organisms, and the hyporheic zone can influence stream chemistry as a result of the transformation and retention of nutrients, organic matter and trace metals. Thus, recognition of hyporheic processes in stream restoration is important. Case studies conducted in urban and agricultural streams near Toronto revealed that the stream channel restoration projects induced both vertical and lateral stream-subsurface water interaction. However, the areas of biogeochemical transformation were limited to the zone near the water-sediment interface as oxygen and nitrate were depleted in a short distance, and the impact of hyporheic processes on stream ecosystem functioning was not considerably enhanced by the restoration projects.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/runoff/2006/AllAbstracts/34