Rediscovering and Restoring Lost River-Wetland Corridors along Heavily Dammed Waterways

After two decades of studying impaired waterways and the impact of Pleistocene-Holocene climates and conditions on landscapes in the mid-Atlantic region, our research group at Franklin and Marshall College established the Chesapeake Watershed Initiative in 2020 to deepen understanding of 1) the Quaternary geologic history of modern landscapes, 2) the legacies of human impacts on riparian-aquatic ecosystems, and 3) the effectiveness of transformative restoration efforts to improve water quality and ecosystem health. Our approach connects landscape history and trajectories to current place-based restoration and applies to many human-impacted geographies worldwide. We investigate Earth’s past to envision restoration potential and guide restoration approaches. We use several types of long-term monitoring to evaluate landscape response to restoration. These include repeat RTK GPS and aerial lidar surveys, multiple USGS gage stations to monitor water and sediment fluxes, and in situ thermal sensors and UAVs (drones) with thermal cameras to assess the mixing of surface and groundwater (i.e., hyporheic exchange).

Speaker: Dorothy Merrits, geomorphologist

Editor's Note: At time of listing, this event is shown as in person and online.  However, the Stanford location is not provided.