Water Resource Management Commons^™

Can Common Carp Removal Reduce Algal Bloom Intensity In Utah Lake?, Cristina Chirvasa

Research on Capitol Hill

USU sophomore Cristina is an Honors student, Undergraduate Research Fellow, and Community Engaged Scholar studying fisheries and wildlife. Cristina theorizes that removing over-populous carp from Utah Lake will allow larger zooplankton to thrive, which in turn will consume more algae and reduce algal bloom intensity. Her tests so far have proven the first part of her theory, as zooplankton size went up when she removed carp. Next, Cristina will test if bigger zooplankton eat more algae. Cristina credits her love of nature to growing up without enough wilderness in urban Romania. She moved to Utah both for access to our …

Angler Catch Rates, Opinions, And Abiotic Variable Relationships In The Lower Logan River, Utah, Tyler Coleman, Jim Derito, Chris Penne, Gary Thiede, Phaedra Budy

Watershed Sciences Student Research

Summer base flows for rivers are critical for maintaining water quality, healthy fish populations, and a functional aquatic ecosystem. Low summer base flows can increase water temperatures and lower dissolved oxygen levels. These conditions can cause Brown Trout (Salmo trutta) energetic stress and result in lower angler catch. The goal of this study was to determine if low river flows and higher water temperatures influence angler catch rates of Brown Trout on the lower Logan River, Utah and to better understand angler use of the lower river. We performed a creel survey on approximately 6.4 km of the …

Predictive Models Of Post-Wildfire Debris Flow Volume And Grain Size Distribution In The Intermountain West, Sara Wall

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Post-fire debris flows represent the most erosive and potentially hazardous consequence associated with increasing wildfire severity. While an abundance of research has explored where they are likely to occur and their potential magnitude, investigations into understanding how they impact downstream resources are limited. Recent advancements are seeking to link predictive models together to be able to predict how erosion after wildfire may impact reservoirs and aquatic habitat downstream. However, there are two key missing pieces into our ability to examine watershed-scale impacts of post-fire erosion. These include having accurate predictions of how much sediment is likely to be deposited by …

Essays Related To Water Transfer And Water Sharing: The Past And The Present, Arpita Nehra

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This dissertation explores the impacts of resource procurement on economic growth and urbanization in a county through a historical case study, moving on to discuss the welfare impacts of resource-sharing in two regions. The first two essays explore the impact of the Owens Valley water transfer in the 1900s on the urban sprawl and the economic growth of Los Angeles. The main contribution that the first two essays make is to present an empirical analysis on the impact of procurement of resources on the economy. The third essay examines the welfare impacts of a proposed water sharing and development project. …

Valley Bottom Inundation Patterns In Beaver-Modified Streams: A Potential Proxy For Hydrologic Inefficiency, Karen Bartelt

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

For centuries river management and land use actions in North America have caused widespread stream degradation where water now flows downstream with artificially high efficiency. When present, beaver dams slow the flow of water and decrease the efficiency of water conveyance through the landscape. These effects are often to the benefit of the function of natural physical processes and ecology of the stream. The benefits provided by beaver dams have been well studied at small scales, but the methods that these studies rely on are often expensive and time consuming and consequently not feasible to deploy at larger spatial scales …

Limited Progress In Nutrient Pollution In The U.S. Caused By Spatially Persistent Nutrient Sources, Rebecca J. Frei, Gabriella M. Lawson, Adam J. Norris, Gabriel Cano, Maria Camila Vargas, Elizabeth Kujanpää, Austin Hopkins, Brian Brown, Robert Sabo, Janice Brahney, Benjamin W. Abbott

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Human agriculture, wastewater, and use of fossil fuels have saturated ecosystems with nitrogen and phosphorus, threatening biodiversity and human water security at a global scale. Despite efforts to reduce nutrient pollution, carbon and nutrient concentrations have increased or remained high in many regions. Here, we applied a new ecohydrological framework to ~12,000 water samples collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from streams and lakes across the contiguous U.S. to identify spatial and temporal patterns in nutrient concentrations and leverage (an indicator of flux). For the contiguous U.S. and within ecoregions, we quantified trends for sites sampled repeatedly from 2000 …

Managing Water Stored For The Environment During Drought, Sarah Null, Jeffrey Mount, Brian Gray, Michael Dettinger, Kristen Dybala, Gokce Sencan, Anna Sturrock, Barton Thompson, Harrison Zeff

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Storing water in reservoirs is important for maintaining freshwater ecosystem health and protecting native species. Stored water also is essential for adapting to the changing climate, especially warming and drought intensification. Yet, reservoir operators often treat environmental objectives as a constraint, rather than as a priority akin to water deliveries for cities and farms. Reservoir management becomes especially challenging during severe droughts when surface water supplies are scarce, and urban and agricultural demands conflict with water supplies needed to maintain healthy waterways and wetlands. In times of drought, most freshwater ecosystems suffer.

This blog post examines 2021 water year actions …

Predicting Flow Through The Causeway Of The Great Salt Lake Using Hydrodynamic Simulations And Artificial Neural Networks, Som Dutta, Brian Mark Crookston, Michael Rasmussen, Eric Larsen

Reports

At the Great Salt Lake, the northern and southern portions of the lake are divided by an east-to-west causeway that disrupts natural lake currents and significantly increases salt concentrations in the norther portion. To support management efforts to address rising environmental and economic concerns, the causeway was recently modified to include a new breach that typically exhibits a strong density-driven bidirectional flow pattern. To obtain much needed insights into the hydraulic performance of this hydraulic structure and the exchange between the two sections of the lake, a field campaign coupled with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling and an artificial neural …

Spatial And Long-Term Temporal Changes In Water Quality Dynamics Of The Tonle Sap Ecosystem, Savoeurn Soum, Peng Bun Ngor, Thomas E. Dilts, Sapana Lohani, Suzanne Kelson, Sarah E. Null, Flavia Tramboni, Zeb S. Hogan, Bunyeth Chan, Sudeep Chandra

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Tonle Sap lake-river floodplain ecosystem (TSE) is one of the world’s most productive freshwater systems. Changes in hydrology, climate, population density, and land use influence water quality in this system. We investigated long term water quality dynamics (22 years) in space and time and identified potential changes in nutrient limitation based on nutrient ratios of inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus. Water quality was assessed at five sites highlighting the dynamics in wet and dry seasons. Predictors of water quality included watershed land use, climate, population, and water level. Most water quality parameters varied across TSE, except pH and nitrate that remained …

Revegetation Of Native Plant Communities In Great Salt Lake Wetlands: The Effects Of Native Seed Mix Composition And Sowing Density, Laura Beck

Student Research Symposium

One of the threats currently facing Great Salt Lake wetlands is Phragmites australis. Its rapid expansion since 1987 has displaced native vegetation and changed the composition of plant communities. Removal is very costly and takes multiple years of different treatments like herbicide, mowing, and flooding. To ensure Phragmites australis does not return, native seeds will need to be sown. This experiment is to determine the best seed composition and sowing density. In the USU greenhouse, I will sow four different native seed mixes: 100% desirable perennial natives, 75% perennial natives and 25% fast growing natives, 50% perennial natives and 50% …

The Physical And Chemical Limnology Of Yukon’S Largest Lake, Lhù’Ààn Mân’ (Kluane Lake), Prior To The 2016 ‘A’Ą̈Y Chù’ Diversion, Elloria A. Mcknight, Heidi Swanson, Janice Brahney, David S. Hik

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Despite increasing evidence that large northern lakes are rapidly changing due to climate change, descriptive baseline studies of their physicochemical properties are largely lacking, limiting our ability to detect or predict change. This study represents a comprehensive scientific assessment of the limnology of Yukon’s largest lake: Lhù’ààn Mân’ (Kluane Lake), an important waterbody for local and First Nation communities, and key habitat for trout and salmon. Water sample and instrument data generated throughout 2015 describe distinct regions within the lake and their respective seasonal variability. A deep, glacially-influenced southern basin was characterized by cold, turbid, poorly stratified, unproductive, and nutrient-poor …

Water, Fish, And Fire: Interdisciplinary Research On Ecosystem Services And Climate Adaptation, Liana Prudencio

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Ecosystem services, or benefits from the environment, are plentiful and vary from place to place. Human activities and climate change have impacted these services in every region of the world. This dissertation explores multiple ecosystem services, from water quality improvement to provisioning of fish and habitat, in multiple and international contexts. The first chapter synthesizes the literature on stormwater management and ecosystem services, finding that research at this intersection has provided many parcel-level studies and frameworks for implementing green infrastructure. The second chapter extends the stormwater management literature by quantifying the impacts of green infrastructure on water quantity and quality …

Environmental Controls On Didymosphenia Geminata Bloom Formation, Lindsay Capito

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Climate change is causing rapid glacial recession and earlier snowmelt, which alter the physical and chemical properties of rivers. As a result, organisms at the base of the food web are responding in unforeseen ways. We use the nuisance algae D. geminata (Didymo) as a case study for how climate induced shifts in the timing of glacial and snowmelt runoff are affecting river ecosystems. We evaluated how shifts in the timing of nutrient concentrations and light availability affect nuisance blooms of Didymo in three complementary ways. These are, field studies across streams in various stages of glacial recession, weekly measurements …

Determining How Increasing Precipitation Intensity Will Impact Rangelands In Utah., Karen H. Beard, Andrew Kulmatiski

Browse all Datasets

As the atmosphere warms, precipitation events become larger, but less frequent. Yet, there is fundamental disagreement about how increased precipitation intensity will affect vegetation. Walter’s two-layer hypothesis and experiments testing it have demonstrated that precipitation intensity can increase woody plant growth. Observational studies have found the opposite pattern. Not only are the patterns contradictory, but inference is largely limited to grasslands and savannas. We tested the effects of increased precipitation intensity in a shrub-steppe ecosystem that receives >30% of its precipitation as snow. We used 11 (8 m x 8 m) shelters to collect and redeposit rain and snow as …

Greening-Induced Runoff Loss In The Western United States, Xueyan Zhang

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study assessed how vegetation will influence long-term runoff trends across the western United States (western US) in the future. I used a land surface model with improved dynamic vegetation root processes to better quantify regional runoff trends across five regions (Upper and Lower Colorado, Great Basin, Pacific Northwest, and California). The model was driven by statistically downscaled and bias-corrected outputs from three global climate models under the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. Vegetation greening dominated significant transpiration increases that contributed most to increasing evapotranspiration across the western US, especially during spring and summer. Consistent with these trends, …

Evaluation Of Best Practices For Urban Water Conservation And Water-Smart Growth Implementation In Utah, J. Ivy Harvey Thomson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Policies and programs have been utilized throughout the United States (U.S.) to reduce water use as a strategy to ensure sufficient water supplies for future demand. As governmental leaders and policy makers face increasing freshwater scarcity and supply unpredictability, along with rising costs and decreased federal funding, Best Practices (BPs) in water conservation are increasingly important to facilitate decision-making in choosing which strategies to employ. This project uses policy analysis to review and summarize various BPs, referencing both academic and professional literature. National fixture efficiency standards enacted in 1992 are credited as among the leading factors reducing indoor water use …

Collaborative Research: Network Cluster: Dust In The Critical Zone From The Great Basin To The Rocky Mountains, Janice Brahney

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Limited Importance Of Primary Production In The Deep Chlorophyll Layer For Macro-Zooplankton In An Oligotrophic Karst Lake: A Whole-Lake 15N Experiment, Wayne A. Wurtsbaugh, María Rosa Miracle, Antonio Camacho, Javier Armengol, Eduardo Vicente

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Deep-chlorophyll layers (DCL) in oligotrophic lakes contribute significantly to primary productivity, but the importance of this production for the rest of the food web and for other strata is unknown. In Laguna El Tejo, a sheltered 1.7-ha Spanish karst lake, chlorophyll levels were < 2 μg/L in the epilimnion but reached 10 μg/L in the metalimnion and upper hypolimnion where cyanobacterial picoplankton dominated. Particulate nitrogen levels were 2-14 times higher in the metalimnion than in the epilimnion and 42 % of the primary productivity occurred in the deeper strata where the DCL was located. To address the trophic importance of the high biomass and production in the deep chlorophyll layer, we injected ¹⁵NH₄⁺ and rhodamine into a 0.5-m strata (15-16 m) in the metalimnion of the lake. The ¹⁵NH₄⁺ taken up by the nitrogen-limited phytoplankton allowed us to measure the importance of biologically mediated transport whereas the rhodamine traced physical eddy diffusion. After 28 days 55 % of the ¹⁵N could be …

A Low-Cost, Open Source Monitoring System For Collecting High Temporal Resolution Water Use Data On Magnetically Driven Residential Water Meters, Camilo J. Bastidas Pacheco, Jeffery S. Horsburgh, Robb J. Tracy

Publications

We present a low-cost (≈$150) monitoring system for collecting high temporal resolution residential water use data without disrupting the operation of commonly available water meters. This system was designed for installation on top of analog, magnetically driven, positive displacement, residential water meters and can collect data at a variable time resolution interval. The system couples an Arduino Pro microcontroller board, a datalogging shield customized for this specific application, and a magnetometer sensor. The system was developed and calibrated at the Utah Water Research Laboratory and was deployed for testing on five single family residences in Logan and Providence, Utah, for …

Private Land, Public Trust: Strategic Conservation Planning For Public Wildlife On Private Lands Through The Usfws Partners For Fish And Wildlife Program, Clint Wirick

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Law requires federal agencies to develop long-term strategic plans. Strategic plans define goals, objectives, and performance measures defining how the agencies and programs will reach their stated goals. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife (PFW) develops strategic plans every five years. Each individual state develops a plan for their respective state. Those state plans are compiled for the region and become part of Regional Comprehensive Strategic Plan. The current strategic plan expires in 2021. States will begin the strategic planning process in 2020. In Utah, PFW staff will also begin developing a strategic plan for the …

Understanding The Effects Of Above- And Belowground Linkages On Carbon Cycling In A High Latitude, Coastal Wetland, Trisha Atwood

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Potential For Managed Aquifer Recharge To Enhance Fish Habitat In A Regulated River, Robert W. Van Kirk, Bryce A. Contor, Christina N. Morrisett, Sarah E. Null, Ashly S. Loibman

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) is typically used to enhance the agricultural water supply but may also be promising to maintain summer streamflows and temperatures for cold-water fish. An existing aquifer model, water temperature data, and analysis of water administration were used to assess potential benefits of MAR to cold-water fisheries in Idaho’s Snake River. This highly-regulated river supports irrigated agriculture worth US $10 billion and recreational trout fisheries worth $100 million. The assessment focused on the Henry’s Fork Snake River, which receives groundwater from recharge incidental to irrigation and from MAR operations 8 km from the river, addressing (1) the …

Machine Learning Predicts Reach-Scale Channel Types From Coarse-Scale Geospatial Data In A Large River Basin, Hervé Guillon, Colin F. Byrne, Belize A. Lane, Samuel Sandoval Solis, Gregory B. Pasternack

Publications

Hydrologic and geomorphic classifications have gained traction in response to the increasing need for basin-wide water resources management. Regardless of the selected classification scheme, an open scientific challenge is how to extend information from limited field sites to classify tens of thousands to millions of channel reaches across a basin. To address this spatial scaling challenge, this study leverages machine learning to predict reach-scale geomorphic channel types using publicly available geospatial data. A bottom-up machine learning approach selects the most accurate and stable model among∼20,000 combinations of 287 coarse geospatial predictors, preprocessing methods, and algorithms in a three-tiered framework to …

Resurgence Of An Apex Marine Predator And The Decline In Prey Body Size, Jan Ohlberger, Daniel E. Schindler, Eric J. Ward, Timothy E. Walsworth, Timothy E. Essington

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

In light of recent recoveries of marine mammal populations worldwide and heightened concern about their impacts on marine food webs and global fisheries, it has become increasingly important to understand the potential impacts of large marine mammal predators on prey populations and their life-history traits. In coastal waters of the northeast Pacific Ocean, marine mammals have increased in abundance over the past 40 to 50 y, including fish-eating killer whales that feed primarily on Chinook salmon. Chinook salmon, a species of high cultural and economic value, have exhibited marked declines in average size and age throughout most of their North …

Beavers Alter Stream Macroinvertebrate Communities In Northeastern Utah, Susan E. Washko, Brett B. Roper, Trisha Brooke Atwood

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

1. Understanding changes in macroinvertebrate communities is important because they play a large role in stream ecosystem functioning, and they are an important food resource for fish. Beaver‐induced changes to stream morphology could alter macroinvertebrate communities, which in turn could affect food webs and ecosystem function. However, studies investigating the effects of North American beaver activities on macroinvertebrates are rare in the inter‐mountain west, an area with high potential for beaver‐assisted restoration.
2. The aim of this study was to quantify differences in the macroinvertebrate community between unaltered segments of streams and within beaver ponds in north‐eastern Utah, U.S.A. We assessed macroinvertebrate …

Assessing Beaver Dam Dynamics In The Logan-Little Bear Watershed, Connor Penrod

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This paper seeks to address a knowledge gap concerning how flood events impact beaver dams over time. To address this gap, I took four time-snapshots of beaver dams, mapping them across the Utah portion of the Logan-Little Bear watershed, from 2009 to 2016 to bookend a large flood event in 2011. I assessed dam status (intact, breached, or blown out) for each dam mapped to assess the impact of the large spring runoff on the dam status. Assessing dam status over time allowed me to assess the change in condition over time, from before to several years after, while also …

Wildfire In The West: An Initial Analysis Of Wildfire Impacts On Hydrology And Riverbed Grain Size In Relation To Salmonid Habitat, Natalie J. Gillard

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Historically wildfires have been beneficial to forests, however, human developments have encroached on forests when wildfire was artificially suppressed by federal and state agencies. The area burned by wildfire each year has increased twenty-fold in the past three decades. Large, high severity fires pose increased threats to human and aquatic communities within and downstream of the burned area due to post-wildfire effects on flooding and sedimentation. We need to understand the impacts of wildfires to be able to mitigate their damages and to recognize their potential benefits. This research addresses the questions: 1) Do wildfires impact rural and urban economies …

Evaluation Of Stream Bank Restoration To Improve Water Quality In A Semi-Arid Stream, Johnathan Neenan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Human watershed activities such as converting land cover to agriculture and livestock grazing have negatively impacted stream water quality worldwide. One such case is Utah’s Upper Sevier River where a loss of woody bank vegetation (reduced shading) and accelerated bank erosion (increased fine sediment inputs) has led to increased stream temperature and water turbidity. As a result, the state of Utah sought to improve water quality conditions using streambank restoration. While commonly recommended and performed, the effectiveness of this sort of restoration has rarely been quantified. Here, I evaluated a restored reach of the Upper Sevier River near Hatch, UT …

Mapping Valley Bottom Confinement At The Network Scale, Gary R. O'Brien, Joseph Michael Wheaton, Kirstie Fryirs, William W. Macfarlane, Gary Brierley, Kelly Whitehead, Jordan T. Gilbert, Carol Volk

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

In this article, we demonstrate the application of a continuous confinement metric across entire river networks. Confinement is a useful metric for characterizing and discriminating valley setting. At the reach scale, valley bottom confinement is measured and quantified as the ratio of the length of channel confined on either bank by a confining margin divided by the reach length. The valley bottom is occupied by the contemporary floodplain and/or its channel(s); confining margins can be any landform or feature that makes up the valley bottom margin, such as bedrock hillslopes, terraces, fans, or anthropogenic features such as stopbanks or constructed …

Examination Of The Climate Factors That Reduced Wheat Yield In Northwest India During The 2000s, Avik Mukherjee, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, Parichart Promchote

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

In India, a significant reduction of wheat yield would cause a widespread impact on food security for 1.35 billion people. The two highest wheat producing states, Punjab and Haryana in northern India, experienced a prolonged period of anomalously low wheat yield during 2002–2010. The extent of climate variability and change in influencing this prolonged reduction in wheat yield was examined. Daily air temperature (T_max and T_ave) was used to calculate the number of days above optimum temperature and growing degree days (GDD) anomaly. Two drought indices, the standard precipitation and evapotranspiration index and the radiation-based precipitation index, …