This creative project has culminated in a design solution to a water quality problem in the City of Indianapolis, Indiana. Pogues Run is a stream that has been buried in an underground culvert for almost a century. It has a long history of water quality problems including high bacteria levels and nonpoint source pollution. In addition, it has long been a flood threat to neighboring communities.To address the issue, a master plan was created for the last 1400' of Pogues Run before it emptied into the White River. The stream was removed from the culvert, brought back up to grade, a series of wetlands were developed to slow and filter stream flow, and an urban revitalization project was developed centering on the stream. The design solution provided flood control, stormwater storage and treatment, mixed-use redevelopment of historical buildings, a recreational area, and a high-density residential community. / Department of Landscape Architecture

In this study we assessed growth laws of sub-delta crevasses in the Mississippi River delta plain, experimental laboratory deltas, and compared them to previously studied river dominated large deltas worldwide. Metrics for channel and delta geometry for each system were obtained using a combination of geospatial tools, bathymetric datasets, sediment size, and hydrodynamic observations. Most crevasses and experimental deltas appear to obey delta growth laws suggesting that they exhibit planform metrics similar to larger deltas. However, some channels within each system, exhibit outlier behavior (e.g. asymmetric growth) where channel length is much larger than channel width. Hydrodynamic observations and morphodynamic modeling results, support the role of confinement in governing this response, through direct lateral confinement of the receiving basin width and depth thus guiding channels, and indirect confinement caused by sediment cohesion, whereby natural levees guide the systems asymmetric channel growth.

Ph.D. / South Africa is the highest produce-producing and therefore the highest pesticide consumer on the African continent. Although greatly beneficial to the industry, indiscriminate and over usage of these agrochemicals pose a risk to the aquatic ecosystems through non-point source pollution. Data on these risks are limited in the developing countries such as Africa since limited environmental monitoring of pesticides is undertaken. This is due to technical, logistical and economical constraints in determining the links between exposure and effect on non-target organisms. Methods that are able to screen for and monitor pesticides that could pose a risk according to site-specific scenarios are therefore necessary. Economical and easy-to-use predictive models incorporated into Preliminary Risk Assessments (PRA’s) are useful in this regard and have been developed and applied globally to assist in estimating the probability of risks of pesticides associated with aquatic ecosystems. Currently no such risk assessment model is applied in South Africa for this purpose. The main aim of the present study was to present and assess the suitability of selected PRA models as preliminary screening tools for estimating potential pesticide exposure and associated effects within aquatic ecosystems. To achieve this, the primary objectives were to apply and validate these models for assessing predicted risks and to relate these to actual ecological hazards by monitoring the exposure and effects of selected pesticides that were identified as potentially posing a risk. It was hypothesised that the data determined by these models would elucidate the association between potential risks of pesticides and actual environmental impacts and could therefore be applied and validated for South African conditions. A framework was thus developed using multidisciplinary approaches to predict the risks of agricultural pesticides to non-target aquatic organisms and to validate these risks in an area known to have a high pesticide usage, namely the Crocodile (west) Marico catchment. This area is representative of a typical farming community in the subtropical central area of South Africa. It is a catchment area that exhibits high urban and agricultural usage, which has compromised the overall ecological integrity of the aquatic systems. The focus of the study was on the Crocodile (west) and Magalies Rivers and the associated irrigation canal network systems. The present study was based on integrating multidisciplinary techniques following the implementation of a tiered approach for assessing the ecological risks of selected pesticides known to be used within the Crocodile (west) Marico catchment. Tier 1 starts with the PRA assuming a relatively worst-case scenario by identifying pesticides most commonly used (through surveys) and estimating exposures posing a potential risk to the aquatic environment using the PRIMET (Pesticide Risks In the tropics to Man, Environment and Trade) model. The second tier can establish a more realistic characterisation of risk for the pesticide application scenarios of interest by using models such as PERPEST (Predicting the Ecological Risks of PESTicides), PEARL (Pesticide Emission Assessment of Regional and Local Scales), TOXSWA (TOXic substances in Surface Waters), or SSDs (Species Sensitivity Distributions). Higher tiers then include comparing the results from the PRA model predictions to the actual hazards of pesticides and can determine if these risk models are valid under South Africa conditions. This can be achieved using a combination of laboratory- and field-based monitoring assessments in the form of a triad approach (using chemical, toxicological and ecological assessments) to construct several lines-of-evidence (LoEs). The risk assessment process ends with a summary and integration of the data based on the multiple LoEs gathered during monitoring using a weight-of-evidence (WoE) approach.

This study focuses on the development of water resources in the Trinity River basin for navigation, flood control, water supply, recreation, and allied purposes. Special emphasis is given to the development of the upper Trinity River basin through the influence of community leaders in Dallas and Fort Worth. A desire harbored for generations by upper basin residents for creating a navigable waterway on the Trinity River coalesced in the twentieth century into a well organized movement for all facets of water resources development. Sources include correspondence, speeches, and promotional materials of civic leaders, politicians, and other citizens, as well as works by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

Gut contents of 2,500 stonefly nymphs, comprising 10 species, from the Gunnison and Dolores Rivers, Colorado were examined from Dec., 1974-Oct., 1975. Perlidae species were carnivorous feeding primarily on chironomids, mayflies and caddisflies. Seasonal patterns of ingestion and preference varied among species and predator sizes and between rivers. Early instar polyphagous species utilized detritus in the fall, eventually shifting to carnivorous habits as they grew through winter-spring. Pteronarcids fed predominantly on detritus. Dietary overlap of predators was greatest in the Gunnison River, with subtle mechanisms such as prey species and size selectivity, temporal succession and seasonal shifts to detritus-plant material in some, providing reduction of competition. A more complete partitioning of prey resources was evident in the Dolores River.

Quantification of stream macrobenthos populations has remained a perplexing problem in rivbrine ecology, despite numerous attempts at improvement. This is in part due to well documented variations in chemical and physical parameters locally and geographically, and resultant adapted macrobenthos populations. Southwood (1968) and Hynes (1970a) have reviewed the various sampling techniques developed'for the census of lotic macrobenthos populations. Needham and Usinger (1956), Chutter (1969), and others have pointed out the difficulty in obtaining adequate numbers of samples which will yield population estimates with desired statistical confidence, and still maintain some degree of sampling economy. Needham and Usinger (1956) and Gaufin et al. (1956) mentioned the "patchy" distribution of aquatic insect populations as the primary source of this difficulty. The concept of patchy distribution in insect populations was originally discussed by Andrewartha (1961). Attempts to improve confidence through improved sampling devices and techniques have led to development of numerous types of samplers. Cummins (1962) indicated that there were almost as many samplers as there were researchers.

The Ob is the third largest Eurasian river supplying heat and freshwater to the Arctic Ocean. These inputs influence water salinity, ice coverage, ocean temperatures and ocean circulation, and ultimately the global climate system. Variability of Ob River flow on long time scales is poorly understood, however, because gaged flow records are short. Eleven tree-ring width chronologies of Pinus sibirica and Larix sibirica are developed from the floodplain of the Lower Ob River, analyzed for hydroclimatic signal and applied as predictors in a regression model to reconstruct 8-month average (December-July) discharge of the Ob River at Salekhard over the interval 1705-2012 (308 yrs). Correlation analysis suggests the signal for discharge comes through air temperature: high discharge and floodplain water levels favor cool growing-season air temperature, which limits tree growth for the sampled species at these high latitudes. The reconstruction model (R-2 = 0.31, 1937-2009 calibration period) is strongly supported by cross validation and analysis of residuals. Correlation of observed with reconstructed discharge improves with smoothing. The long-term reconstruction correlates significantly with a previous Ob River reconstruction from ring widths of trees outside the Ob River floodplain and extends that record by another century. Results suggest that large multi-decadal swings in discharge have occurred at irregular intervals, that variations in the 20th and 21st centuries have been within the envelope of natural variability of the past 3 centuries, and that discharge data for 1937-2009 underestimate both the variability and persistence of discharge in the last 3 centuries. The reconstruction gives ecologists, climatologists and water resource planners a long-term context for assessment of climate change impacts.

The vertical and lateral aggradation of terminal and crevasse splay deposits in continental environments can form extensive fine-grained, sheet-like sandstone bodies which may form an important but often overlooked component of subsurface hydrocarbon reservoirs. This study examines splay deposits on the modern day Distributive Fluvial System (DFS), of the Parapeti River, Bolivia, using remote sensing techniques and geographic information system (ArcGIS) to characterise both lateral and terminal modern splay systems. Overall emphasis is given to the spatial and temporal relationship between sedimentary facies at the distal part of the Parapeti DFS over the past 42 years. A sedimentary facies evolution model is created to account for the development of the distal part of the Parapeti DFS. A number of splay deposits have formed and developed during this period and the Parapeti channel has prograded ~17 km basinward by short-term deposition in one location, followed by either repeated local avulsion or coeval downstream progradation of the terminal channel and associated splays. Rock record examples from the Miocene aged Huesca DFS in the Ebro Basin, Spain were studied in order to compare dimensional data as well as understand the relationship between splays and associated channel bodies. The study area is characterized by thin sandstone sheets (0.05-2.6 m thick; 100s m wide) interbedded with mudstones and siltstones interpreted to represent a terminal splay complex based on the distribution of facies, architectural elements and paleocurrent data. There is a strong resemblance between the model developed for the Parapeti DFS and the splay complexes recorded in the Miocene Huesca DFS. Sedimentary models are proposed in which terminal splay formation through avulsions is considered to be the dominant process in the distal parts of both systems. Avulsions control sediment distribution, resulting in stacking of splay deposits to form extensive sandstone sheets. However, it is suggested that different types of avulsion successions (i.e. progressive or abrupt) recognized by previous workers, may not be distinguishable in the rock record as they can produce a similar stratigraphic signature.

Master of Science / Department of Biology / Craig Paukert / In-stream dredging is a common practice in rivers worldwide that can affect fish and fish habitat. We investigated the magnitude of these alterations and their influence on the fish community of the Kansas River, a large sand bed river. Fishes were collected monthly from June 2010 to June 2011 in Edwardsville and Lawrence, KS from 12, 1-km reaches (three actively dredged, two historically dredged that have not been dredged in at least one month, and seven control reaches) with bottom trawls, seines, and electrofishing. Water depths and velocities were measured with an acoustic doppler current profiler and interpolated in ArcGIS at all 12 reaches. Actively dredged reaches had proportionally more deep water habitat (> 3 m) and lower velocity (< 0.15 m/s) near the river bed than control reaches (P < 0.01 and P = 0.04, respectively). However, the mean proportion of shallow water habitat (< 0.5 m), high velocities near the river bed (> 0.30 m/s), low velocity habitat (< 0.25 m/s), and high velocity habitat (> 0.75 m/s) were similar among all reach types (Ps > 0.05). A canonical correspondence analysis was used to characterize relationships among habitat variables, reach types (actively dredged, historically dredged, and control), and catch per unit effort (CPUE) of fishes in the Kansas River. Mean velocity and depth explained a significant amount of variation in species CPUE; however, reach type was not a significant factor for any of the gear types for any season. Our results show that dredging in Great Plains Rivers can increase depths, but alterations to fish community structure was not evident, likely because many of these fishes are adapted to a range of habitat conditions and are highly mobile.

Maps in pocket bound with piece.