I studied how geology, land use and rainfall, correlated with peak flow responses in 110 headwater stream sites during a drought year. Highest discharges were observed in the most developed catchments and in the most poorly drained soils, but specific responses were variable depending on both geology and land disturbance. Redundancy analysis indicated that both surficial geology and land disturbance were important predictors of discharge and that rainfall was in general a poor predictor of discharge. I conclude that responses of headwater streams to individual storms are unpredictable from data generated using GIS, but increased peak flows occur associated with human development, mitigated by surficial geology. The headwater streams that are most vulnerable to flow alterations occur on poorly drained soils, and where urbanization tends to concentrate. Much greater attention to managing water is required if further degradation of stream ecosystems is to be prevented from our future land use.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/17446 |
| Date | 14 July 2009 |
| Creators | Stanfield, Les |
| Contributors | Jackson, Donald Andrew |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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