Description

A river's physical features and channel dimensions are determined by the water and sediment supplied to it. The Diamond Fork River, located in central Utah–received large trans-basin diversion flows from 1915-2003, providing an exceptional opportunity to explore the response of a river to a large increase in flow.

Our project goals were to describe 1) channel response to this large and long artificial flow augmentation and 2) how the channel recovered after the removal of the diversion flows. The objective of this thesis is to document the channel condition throughout the 20th century to present day as a basis for describing the impact of flow augmentation on channel change and for guiding future river management.

This work builds on the findings of (Jones, 2018) by adding resolution to the 20th century changes with additional historic air photos. We also add information on historic river channel elevation by studying locations that the river abandoned in the 20th century. We find the extent and nature of channel adjustment depends on whether the valley is narrow or wide. Floods larger than the diversion flows produced channel change followed by a recovery period that allowed the channel to narrow. After diversion flows were removed from the river in 2004, the river channel continues to narrow, form meander bends, and riverbank vegetation has begun to hold the channel in place.

Document Type

Dataset

DCMI Type

Dataset

File Format

.zip, .txt, .xlsx, .cpg, .dbf, .prj, .sbn, .sbx, .shp, .shx

Viewing Instructions

ArcGIS Pro or ArcGIS, Excel

Publication Date

2-16-2024

Publisher

Utah State University

Methodology

Data was collected and created using a LiDAR DEM, historical aerial images, and field data. LiDAR DEM and select aerial images were collected by Jones (2018).

Years of Aerial images collected by Jones (2018) from Soil Conservation Service, Army Map Series, Utah Geological Survey, USGS, NHAP, DOQQ, and NAIP include:

1939 (with a few select frames collected by Diane E. Wagner)

1956

1981

1982

1983

1993

1997

2003

2004

2006

2009

2011

2014

2016

Photos collected by Diane E. Wagner were collected from the Utah Geological Survey, NAIP, Google, and Hexagon imagery. These years include:

1964/5

1971

1984

2018

2021

Please contact peter.wilcock@usu.edu for access to aerial photographs used in this thesis.

Referenced by

Jones JC. 2018. Historical Channel Change Caused by a Century of Flow Alteration on Sixth Water Creek and Diamond Fork River, UT, M.S., Utah State University: United States -- Utah. https://doi.org/10.26076/8475-a88e

Wagner, D. E. (2024). Channel Response to Flow Augmentation: Diamond Fork River, UT. Utah State University. https://doi.org/10.26076/JSAQ-JG32

Start Date

1939

End Date

2021

Location

Diamond Fork River, UT

Language

eng

Code Lists

see README

Disciplines

Water Resource Management

License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.26078/x7ez-2635

Checksum

93fb0f3586cc8371cda6082289d61379

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Additional Files

README for Diamond Fork River Data.txt (3 kB)
md5: bd0d0b0a23c69cb5768e452f11d8e8f9

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