{"id":81625,"date":"2019-09-10T17:09:05","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T00:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-clm-blog.pantheonsite.io\/?p=81625"},"modified":"2019-09-10T17:09:05","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T00:09:05","slug":"hydrology-its-a-look","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/?p=81625","title":{"rendered":"Hydrology: It’s a Look"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Already\nunsteady on the invisible rocky surface, I found myself falling backwards as I\nstepped into the fast moving channel. Catching myself on a willow tree, I didn\u2019t\nquite end up submerged, just pleasantly spattered by the cool water of the\nTongue River. It was my first day out in waders on the river, and I was\ndetermined to not make a fool of myself as we collected data for an upcoming\nbank restoration project. The river had been showing signs of increasingly poor\nconditions for years, but before any restoration work could take place, the one\nhydrologist in our BLM office needed to perform some 20 different analyses\nalong 300 points per river bank for his report. So, although a plant biologist\nand rec intern, I was gladly roped into the world of hydrology to help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Tongue River, Wyoming<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our first\nday out at the river was spent establishing the data collection points every\n300 feet along the river. This was before we ordered the waders, so my fellow\nintern and I covered the land-based jobs while the hydrologist dutifully hiked\nup and down the river measuring the distance. We would run to and from the truck,\nmaking metal caps with the proper distances stamped on them, grabbing spray\npainted blue posts to mark these metal monuments, and collecting GPS data on\nthe fancy Trimble unit we were using for the project. It was when I found\nmyself squeezing through dense stands of willow trees to reach the hydrologist\nand hand off our many tools that I truly felt happy; while I have enjoyed my\nexperiences in sagebrush country, here, slogging through trees with twigs in my\nhair and mud flecking my face, I felt at home surrounded by plants being useful.\nAnd we were useful. By the end of the day, the hydrologist officially signed us\non to the project and ordered the waders so we could really dive in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a\nhot, muggy day when I first tried out my waders. They are made of Neoprene, a\nvery thick buoyant material that, I quickly learned, are not suitable for any\nland hiking on hot days. Only in the cool water is it tolerable, although the\npressure from the river makes it feels like you\u2019ve vacuum packed your legs in\nan attempt to keep them dry. Our task for the day was to make bank assessments\nfor every distinct section of the river. These assessments included taking note\nof the bank height, root depth and density, surface protection, sediment types\nand degree of stratification for these sediments. Each of these categories received\na numeric value which, when manipulated according to a template, would give you\nan overall rating for the health and stability of each section of the bank. It\nis a somewhat rough estimate of health, however, as you are supposed to apply\neach set of observations to a given section of stream; making these assessments\nat every point along the river would be time consuming, absurd, and not\neffective in the long run due to the ever-changing bank geography. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Me, trying not to fall over in a pretty fast current<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As we\nhiked the river (downstream, the more energy-sensible direction), the\nhydrologist pointed out features of the river for which I never had official\nvocabulary before. Pools, well-known as the deeper areas of rivers, turn into\nglides, or smooth areas of fast-moving water. These are followed by riffles, or\nshallow areas where fast-moving water is agitated by rocks, and then go into runs\nwhich make up the main body of moving water. These four areas repeat all down\nthe river and once you recognize them, you begin to recognize the various types\nof erosion or deposits that are associated with each. There was also bizarrely\na lot of car parts protruding from the banks. When I asked about it, I was told\nthat dumping cars on the sides of banks and covering them with soil used to be\na widespread restoration method in the 1950s, resulting in many rivers across\nthe country with old decaying cars randomly popping up. They provide a tough\nproblem: on one hand, they are polluting the river and becoming dangerous debris\nwhile on the other, many of them are still doing their job stabilizing the\nriverbank. Our hydrologist will have to make the call as to whether we will rip\nup the bank to get at the semi-revealed cars, or if we will wait for a future\nrestoration project to do that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am very happy to be working on this hydrology project. It gives me the opportunity to learn about a system which I\u2019ve never really focused on before, as well as asking an expert millions of questions that he has been kind enough to answer. We will continue working on river data collection for the next two month, by which point I\u2019m sure I will love the warmth my Neoprene waders provide. Until then, I\u2019ll just rock the sweaty end-of-summer look. And it truly is a look. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buffalo BLM Rec Intern

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Already unsteady on the invisible rocky surface, I found myself falling backwards as I stepped into the fast moving channel. Catching myself on a willow tree, I didn\u2019t quite end up submerged, just pleasantly spattered by the cool water of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7531,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81625"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81680,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81625\/revisions\/81680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}