SEDIMENT INFLOWS AND WATER QUALITY IN AN URBANIZING WATERSHED

Contribution of stream channel erosion to sediment yield from an urbanizing watershed

Stream channel erosion has long been suspected as the major contributor to long-term sediment yield from urbanizing watersheds. For San Diego Creek in southern California, measurements from 1983 to 1993 showed that stream channel erosion furnished 10(5) megagrams per year of sediment, or about two-thirds of the total sediment yield. Thus, because channel erosion can be a major source of sedimen...

A Comparison of SWAT and HSPF Models for Simulating Hydrologic and Water Quality Responses from an Urbanizing Watershed

A watershed model can be used to better understand the relationship between land use activities and hydrologic and water quality processes occurring within a watershed. Two different models, SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) and HSPF (Hydrologic Simulation ProgramFortran), were selected in this study to simulate stream flow, sediment, and nutrients loading from the Polecat Creek watershed i...

Spatial interactions among ecosystem services in an urbanizing agricultural watershed.

Understanding spatial distributions, synergies, and tradeoffs of multiple ecosystem services (benefits people derive from ecosystems) remains challenging. We analyzed the supply of 10 ecosystem services for 2006 across a large urbanizing agricultural watershed in the Upper Midwest of the United States, and asked the following: (i) Where are areas of high and low supply of individual ecosystem s...

Effects of stream restoration on denitrification in an urbanizing watershed.

Increased delivery of nitrogen due to urbanization and stream ecosystem degradation is contributing to eutrophication in coastal regions of the eastern United States. We tested whether geomorphic restoration involving hydrologic "reconnection" of a stream to its floodplain could increase rates of denitrification at the riparian-zone-stream interface of an urban stream in Baltimore, Maryland. Ra...

Sediment yield reduction in an agricultural watershed