Development of a Systematic Approach 
for Channel Restoration Activities

Project Goals:

• Develop an approach employing digital data and field observations to quantify stable channel geometry as a function of observable watershed characteristics.
• Gather digital topography, land-use, and soils covering the State of Maryland.
• Create software to extract watershed and locally based parameters associated with a given stream.
• Perform field surveys of streams gathering hydraulic geometry, velocity, and other pertinent information.
• Assimilate above data and techniques to develop methodology and equations to predict stream characteristics.
• Create a cost function to quantify the severity of human impacts upon a given channel.
• Propose an methodology to optimally allocate limited resources across multiple restoration sites.

Computer Programs/Scripts:

• MATLAB Script to Calculate Channel Cross-Section Properties

Sample Bibliography:

1. Anderson, D.G., Effects of Urban Development on Floods in Northern Virgina. U.S. Geological Survey water-supply paper, 2001-C. Washington, D.C.
2. Andrews, E.A., 1980. Effective and bankfull discharges in the Yampa river basin, Colorado and Wyoming. Journal of Hydrology, 46: 311-330.
3. Dunne, T. and L.B. Leopold, 19??. Water in Environmental Planning,
4. Fox, H.L., 1976. The urbanizing river: A case study in the Maryland Piedmont. In: Geomorphology and Engineering, edited by D.R. Coates, Dowden, Hutchinson, & Ross, Inc. Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.
5. Hammer, T.R., 1972. Stream channel enlargement due to urbanization. Water Resources Research, 8(6): 1530-1540.
6. Hirsch, R.M., The interaction of channel size and flood discharges for basins undergoing urbanization.
7. Kilpatrick, F.A. and Barnes, H.H., Jr., 1964. Channel Geometry of Piedmont Streams as Related to Frequency of Floods. U.S. Geological Survey professional paper, 422-E. Washington, D.C.
8. Leopold, L.B. and T. Maddock Jr. , 1953. The hydraulic geometry of stream channels and some physiographic implications. U.S. Geological Survey professional paper, 282-A. Washington, D.C.
9. Leopold, L.B. , 1968. Quantitative Comparison of  Some Aesthetic Factors Among Rivers.  U.S. Geological Survey circular, 620.Washington, D.C.
10. Yorke, T.H. and W.J. Herb, 1978. Effects of Urbanization on Streamflow and Sediment Transport in the Rock Creek and Anacostia River Basins, Montgomery County, Maryland, 1962-74. U.S. Geological Survey professional paper, 1003.  Washington, D.C..

Contact/Feedback:

• Phone: (301) 405-1964
• E-mail: moglen@eng.umd.edu
• Home Page: http://www.ence.umd.edu/~moglen/
• Address:

Glenn E. Moglen
Department of Civil Engineering
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742