Floods, Floodplains, and Fluvial Studies

Type: Paper Session

Time: 11/7/2020 03:30 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) to 4:45 PM

Session Description and Agenda

Special Paper Session: Floods, Floodplains, and Fluvial Studies

1) Getting your feet wet: Strategies for implementing field-based stream research in large undergraduate classes

2) Variations in the Water Quality of Tributary Streams within the Cache River Watershed in Eastern Arkansas

3) Drivers for vegetation recovery on point bars – modeling and mapping vegetation regrowth in the mid-Apalachicola River, Florida

4) Origin Hypothesis for North Carolina Outer Banks Barrier Islands, Capes, and Coastal Plain Surface Hydrology Patterns

5) Insights from Paired Profiles of a Disturbed Coastal Plain River

Variations in the Water Quality of Tributary Streams within the Cache River Watershed in Eastern Arkansas

Session: Floods, Floodplains, and Fluvial Studies
Type: Paper Session

Abstract

Water pollution is a significant issue in various parts of the United States and is particularly problematic in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain.  Extensive agricultural activity has removed large areas of bottomland hardwood forest and wetlands and has altered the drainage network.  In far too many cases, buffers are not provided along drainage ways and streams and the result has been high levels of pollution.  This paper uses the Cache River, an important tributary of the White River, as a case study to illustrate the extent of the stream degradation and pollution. The Cache River and its tributaries make up an important drainage network within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain in eastern Arkansas.  Two specific sub-watersheds are used to provide detailed information on variations in land use, levels of pollution, and diversity of aquatic life. While it is widely understood that agricultural activity often leads to poor water quality, this research uses specific water quality parameters to illustrate important differences in pH,  temperature, and dissolved oxygen and turbidity for two sub-watersheds where the land use practices vary tremendously and water pollution levels are dramatically different.  By almost every measure, water quality was higher in the sub-watershed with a higher percentage of woodland and more extensive stream buffers thereby illustrating the importance of watershed management and the need for protective buffers along streams as a means to improve water quality. 

Authors