The traditional lands of the Southern Paiute people are bounded by more than 600 miles of Piapaxa (Colorado River) from the Kaiparowits Plateau in the north to Blythe, California in the south. According to traditional beliefs, Southern Paiute people were created in this traditional land and, through this creation, the Creator gave Paiute people a special supernatural responsibility to protect and manage this land including its water and natural resources. Puaxantu Tuvip (sacred land) is the term that refers to traditional ethnic territory. Within these lands no place was more special than Piapaxa 'uipi (Big River Canyon) where the Colorado River cuts through the Grand Canyon.

No description available.

Thesis (M.S. - Renewable Natural Resources)--University of Arizona, 1986. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-80).

Studies of environmental and riparian vegetation interrelationships along the lower Escalante River were conducted during 1974 and 1975. The study area included the Escalante River flood terrace between Harris Wash and Coyote Gulch. Methods were developed compatible for wilderness use . Sixty nine 1 x 10 meter macro-plots were taken at 23 locations. Measurements were taken of major environmental parameters thought to influence riparian vegetation : stratigraphy, soil texture and moisture, river bank angle and aspect, and height and width of flood terraces. Canyon profile was found to be strongly influenced by geologic strata. Resistance to erosion by these strata determines canyon fluctuations and flash floods further modify the river bank profile by creating three distinct flood terraces. Vegetation distribution was found to be generally correlated with stratigraphy and flood terraces. The most dominant semi-aquatic species, Scirpus americanus and Eguisetum laevigatum were found on soils saturated to supersaturated with water on the low flood terraces. Baccharis emoryi was found in the medium and high flood terraces where the Chinle Formation was exposed. Different time periods between river inundations and flash floods created significantly different population age structures for the three major tree species (Salix exigua, Populus fremontii, and Tamarix pentandra). Tree longevity increased from low to high flood terraces. Population age structure differences were attributed to flooding which dynamically maintains each cohort. Regeneration by root suckers for Salix and Populus have survival rates greater than Tamarix whose seedling source is washed away by periodic fluctuations in river level. Implications of this research are that reduction in river flow or regulation of floods would remove population equilibrium controls. Tamarix, without the effec t of its seed source being washed away , would have a successional advantage over the other two native tree species whose densities in the young age classes are lower than that of Tamarix. Furthermore, tree populations would shift to an older age structure with greater density. Deleterious effects would be increased evapotranspiration and inaccessability to river recreation. The effects of such vegetation changes on wildlife are unknown.

The role of bedrock on the longitudinal profile of the Colorado River has intrigued workers for over a century. The river's profile exhibits large-scale (10 to 100 km) variations in geomorphology that are qualitatively associated with changes in rock type. This study provides the first bedrock-strength data to quantitatively test the relation of bedrock-resisting to hydraulic-driving forces in Glen and Grand canyons. The intent of this study is to explore the role, if any, that bedrock has on large-scale geomorphic variations along the profile of the Colorado River. Rock-strength data collected at 84 sites along the river corridor in Glen and Grand canyons include intact-rock strength, fracture spacing , and other characteristics associated with Selby rock-mass strength (RMS). These strength data were statistically related to measurements of channel width, gradient, and calculations of unit stream power. At the canyon scale (100 km), rocks in Grand Canyon have significantly higher intact-rock strength, lower fracture spacing, and higher RMS than those in Glen Canyon. These observations correspond to the fact that Grand Canyon is steeper and narrower, and has greater mean unit stream power. Furthermore, smaller scale, reach-average values of rock strength correlate significantly to width, gradient, and unit stream power, although there are outliers related to local-scale effects such as rapids. The Colorado River runs in a narrower and steeper channel in reaches confined by resistant bedrock ( e.g., Upper Granite Gorge, RM 77-114). In contrast , reaches floored in weaker bedrock (e.g., lower Marble Canyon, river miles 37 to 58) are associated with wider channels and lower gradient. This study confirms previous research linking rock type to the geomorphology of the Colorado River. Results imply that knickzones in the profile are persistent features that reflect a dynamic equilibrium between hydraulic-driving and bedrock-resisting forces, rather than transient waves of incision due to tectonics or drainage integration. They support the hypothesis that bedrock sets the long-term, large-scale template for the Colorado River. Bedrock hypothetically acts as a direct control on the river's width and gradient, particularly when the river is in contact with bedrock. Rock-strength and weathering properties of bedrock within tributary catchments, where debris flows initiate, act as an indirect control through their influence on hillslope-to-river sediment production during episodes, such as today, when the river is not on bedrock.

This study analyzes visual artifacts from three case studies, Hetch Hetchy Valley, Echo Park, and Glen Canyon, in order to contribute to scholarship devoted to environmental visual rhetoric. Through these studies, I address connections between aesthetics and environmental ethics and challenge scholarship that argues mainstream preservationist perspectives have adhered to an anthropocentric ideological paradigm. Grounding my argument in philosopher Arnold Berleant's notion of participatory aesthetics and deploying social semiotics and media analysis methodologies, I propose that two particular aesthetic grammars have been at use in mainstream environmental rhetorics, that which I call the wilderness sublime and the wilderness interactive. Present in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and well documented in existing scholarship, the aesthetic of the wilderness sublime has operated through strict dichotomies between nature and culture that promote reductive views of human relationships with nature. Conversely, I argue that the aesthetic of the wilderness interactive, discoverable in artifacts from the mid-20th century to today, has worked to resist these dichotomies through the use of participatory elements that feature humans and nature in what Berleant calls a "relationship of mutual influence," falling within a more ecocentric ideological view. Through my analysis, I extend Berleant's theoretical application from photography to websites to argue that web-based rhetorics contain distinct potential for the realization of participatory features. In particular, I focus on the aesthetic, technological, social, archival, subjective, and epistemological dimensions proposed by Melinda Turnley to discuss dialogic features of websites that can work to engage diverse stakeholders. Through my findings, I offer a visual analysis heuristic that can be used to discover participatory aesthetics within visual artifacts and resist dualistic views of the environment. Likewise, I present a user analysis heuristic that can help identify targeted stakeholders and recognize participatory aesthetics within websites. Ultimately, this study answers the call of environmental aesthetics to address the realization of perceptual norms that offer more ethical conceptions of human relationships with nature, and it extends this focus into the digital environment to discuss the ability of web design and aesthetics to promote generative stakeholder dialogue in environmental protection and restoration.