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News

Collaborative Beaver-Assisted Restoration Project on the San Rafael River

2/17/2018

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Picture
View looking upstream from the mouth of Moonshine Wash, Lower San Rafael River
Like many desert rivers, the San Rafael River in Price County, Utah has become degraded largely through human-induced alteration of the natural hydrology by over-allocation of water. The magnitude and duration of spring snowmelt floods has been diminished since the early 1900s while monsoon floods continue to deposit large quantities of sediment within the channel, floodplain, and along the channel margins. The altered hydrograph has left the lower San Rafael River in a transport limited condition where the amount of sediment supplied to the channel exceeds the river's ability to transport the sediment out of the system. This dynamic, coupled with dense populations of invasive tamarisks along the channel margins and floodplain, has led to channel narrowing and vertical incision, leaving much of the lower San Rafael disconnected from its historic floodplain. The incised condition, along with the lack of floodplain connectivity, has degraded the quality of instream and riparian habitat leading to a reduction in native fish populations, and a lack of cottonwood and willow recruitment on the floodplain. 

A large collaborative restoration effort was developed with the primary restoration goals to: 1) improve native fish populations, specifically for three native fish species listed as sensitive species (e.g.,flannelmouth sucker (Catostomus latipinnis), the bluehead sucker (Catostomus discobolus), and the roundtail chub (Gila robusta)), 2) improve instream and riparian habitat and, 3) use adaptive management/experimental approach to restoration planning, implementation, and monitoring in order to learn as much as possible from this project to inform future restoration efforts on similar desert rivers. The project is a collaboration between the Bureau of Land Management, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, the United States Geological Survey, and Utah State University's Fish Ecology Lab, Fluvial Geomorphology Lab, the Utah Water Research Lab, and the Fluvial Habitat Center. The project consists of: 1) large-scale tamarisk removal from the banks and floodplain to allow for natural river migration and a transition to native riparian vegetation, 2) gravel augmentation to increase the complexity of instream habitat and learn about sediment transport dynamics within the lower San Rafael, 3) addition of boulders from the valley wall margins where the river naturally contacts the valley margin, and 3) use beaver and beaver dam analogs to improve instream and riparian habitat. 
Picture
Dr. Peter Wilcock, Sam Lyster, Brian Laub, and UDWR's Dan Keller inspect a breached natural beaver dam
Beaver are naturally present in the lower San Rafael River, but the narrow incised condition and lack of suitable riparian vegetation prevents their dams from persisting for very long and likely limits the size of their population. The developers of the restoration plan for the San Rafael River recognized the critical role that beaver have historically played in structuring and maintaining a healthy riverine system and wanted to 'Partner with Beaver' to restore physical and ecological processes within the lower San Rafael River. This project is the first of its kind to use Beaver Dam Analogs (BDAs) in a primarily sand-bedded desert river. The Fluvial Habitat Center was contracted to develop a large scale pilot restoration design to test the effectiveness of using BDAs to improve instream and riparian conditions and beaver habitat within the lower San Rafael River. Dr. Joe Wheaton, Dr. Nick Bouwes, Wally MacFarlane, and Elijah Portugal are responsible for conducting this project for the Fluvial Habitat Center. ​
Picture
Restoration implementation crew getting ready to build BDAs
For more information about the project see below:
  • The Restoration and Monitoring Plan for Native Fish and Riparian Vegetation on the San Rafael River (Laub et al.,  2013)
  • Application of Science-Based Restoration Planning to a Desert River System (Laub et al., 2015)
Picture
Building a BDA starter dam
Picture
BDA starter dam in process of construction
Picture
BDA starter dam downstream, not completely finished
Originally posted Jun 16, 2015, 2:51 PM by Jeannine Huenemann 
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  • Home
    • Fluvial Habitats Center
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    • Bouwes ELR Lab
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    • New FHC Publications
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    • People in the Lab... Coming & Going
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      • Lauren Herbine
      • Karen Bartelt
    • Research Staff >
      • Research Scientists >
        • Joe Wheaton
        • Nicolaas Bouwes
        • Wally Macfarlane
        • Stephen Bennett
      • Technicians >
        • Cashe Rasmussen
        • Chalese Hafen
        • Dylan Baum >
          • Brian Ferrara
    • Where are they now? >
      • Former Graduate Students >
        • Sara Bangen
        • Reid Camp
        • Florence Consolati
        • Daniel Hamill
        • Konrad Hafen
        • James Hensleigh
        • Nate Hough-Snee
        • Alan Kasprak
        • Martha Jensen
        • Ryan Lokteff
        • Connor Penrod
        • Rebecca Rossi
        • Sonya Welsh
      • Research Scientists >
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        • James Hensleigh
        • Natalie Kramer
        • Pete McHugh
        • Elijah Portugal
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        • Gary O'Brien
      • Post-Docs >
        • Nicole Czarnomski
      • Technicians >
        • Micael Albonico
        • Braden Anderson
        • Adan Banda
        • Jordan Burningham
        • Kenny Demeurichy
        • Taylor Dudunake
        • Martha Jensen
        • Joshua Gilbert
        • Jordan Gilbert
        • Thomas Hafen
        • Landon Haycock
        • Matt Meier
        • Chris Smith
        • Geoff Stevens
      • Visiting Scholars >
        • Ester Ramos
  • FHC Projects
    • Current Projects >
      • Beaver Dam Censusing
      • Birch Creek Restoration
      • Escalante Watershed
      • BRAT 2018-2019 >
        • BRAT-Yakama
        • BRAT-John Day
        • BRAT-NF Burnt River
        • BRAT-Idaho
        • BRAT-Utah
        • BRAT-TNC
        • BRAT-GYA
        • Survey123
      • ELR: Asotin LWD Restoration and IMW
      • Price River Channel Analysis
    • Past Projects >
      • BLM >
        • BLM: Historic Sand Cliff Signatures Public Archeology Program
      • DOE: ICRRR >
        • DOE/ICRRR: Geomorphic Change Detection 4.0 Software Development
        • DOE/ICRRR: Geomorphic Change Detection in the Grand Canyon
        • DOE/ICRRR: MoRPHED PhD Studentship
      • Idaho Power Company >
        • Idaho Power: TLS Data Analysis
      • ELR >
        • ELR/BPA: CHaMP Grand Ronde Crew Variability Study
        • ELR/BPA: ISEMP Lemhi Topographic Survey Technique Intercomparison
        • ELR/BPA: ISEMP Bridge Creek Restoration & IMW
        • ELR/FHC/CTWS: Pine Creek Beaver Assisted Restoration Pilot Project
      • NSF >
        • NSF: zCloudTools: Making Point Clouds Useful for Earth Science
        • NSF: Sensitivity of Braided River Morphodynamics to Sediment Supply
      • UDWR >
        • UDWR: Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool (BRAT)
      • USFS >
        • USFS Classification of Columbia River Basin Riparian Vegetation
        • USFS: Comparison of Traditional Versus Ground-Based LiDaR Instream Haibtat Assessments
        • USFS: Temple Fork Watershed Fish & Beaver Ecology
      • USGS >
        • USGS: Big Rivers Monitoring Protocol Development
        • USGS: Dynamism and Persistence of Eddy Sand Bars in Grand Canyon
        • USGS: Riparian Vegetation Analysis
        • USGS: Support in Geographic and Geomorphic Information Analysis for the Colorado River in Grand Canyon
      • Other Sponsors (one off) >
        • BPA/SFR: Development of CHaMP Transformation Tool
        • GCT: Pilot Study: Testing the Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool (BRAT)
        • NOAA: Linking Fisheries,
        • NPS: Assessment of Indicator Sites
        • USU: Tracking Ecogeomorphic Dynamics in Beaver Dam Complexes
    • Study Site Pages >
      • Bridge Creek >
        • 2009 BDSS Structures
        • Bridge Creek April 2010 Drone Survey
      • River Feshie >
        • The River Feshie Catchment
        • Our Research
        • The Team
        • Posters, Papers, & More
        • Photo Gallery
  • Resources
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      • ETAL Reading Group Zotero Library
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      • Courses & Workshops by Joe
    • Guides & Tips >
      • Figure Preparation Tutorials
      • Basic Computing Tips & Tricks >
        • Database & SQL Intro
        • Batch Unzip Script
        • Get a QR Code
        • GeoJSON
        • Markdown
        • Special Characters
        • USU VPN
      • GIS Help >
        • ArcGIS Education Edition
        • GIS Data Sources >
          • Connecting To The APFO Services
          • Connecting to the Utah AGRC Discover Imagery and Base Map Server
          • High Resolution Imagery for Utah State
      • How to Use Specific Software >
        • Adobe Illustrator >
          • Making GCD Figures for ET-AL Lab Using ArcGIS & Adobe Illustrator
        • ArcGIS Desktop - ArcMap >
          • GIS Tutorials
          • Creating DEMs, TINs and Terrains
          • How to divide polylines into a specified segment length
          • Simple Change Detection in ArcGIS
          • Working with Styles in ArcGIS
          • Fixing ActiveX Warning in ArcGIS 10.5
        • Box >
          • Migrating to Box Drive from Box Sync
        • EndNote >
          • EndNote X4 Basics
        • FastStone Capture
        • GitHub >
          • Make a GitHub Account
        • Picasa >
          • Geotagging images & making albums
        • Word >
          • Saving Word Documents as PDFs
          • Using Styles Effectively in Manuscripts & Reports
        • Zotero >
          • Adding from Browser
          • Cite-While-you-Write >
            • Citing in Google Docs
            • Cite in Word
      • Reccomended Software & Utilities
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        • rtkGPS
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        • Writing Literature Reviews (for Grads)
        • Writing Scientific Papers
        • Uploading Content to Research Gate
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        • Standard Software Suite
        • Lab Software License
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        • Editing Workshop Flyers & Webpages
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      • FHC Workshops
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