Location: Watershed Physical Processes Research
Project Number: 6060-13000-029-049-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 20, 2025
End Date: Aug 19, 2027
Objective:
The overall objective is to map erosion risk of sediments stored in-channel and near the channel on the floodplain. Specific objectives are: 1) Characterize channel geometry and riparian vegetation from remotely sensed data such as UAS-based lidar, standard aerial lidar, NAIP/PlanetScope/Sentinel/Landsat imagery; 2) Use information from Specific Objective 1 and national databases of surface water hydrography, soils, and geometry to develop bank and channel erosion hazard; indices; 3) Convert indices of Specific Objective 2 into maps of erosion risk.
Approach:
To delineate probable sources of soils and sediments at the watershed scale, test GIS techniques applied to remote sensing products (e.g., UAS lidar and imagery data, 3DEP aerial lidar data, NHDPlus Hires hydrography data, NLCD/LCMAP land cover data, SSURGO soils data, etc.). Use these data to determine watershed-scale channel conditions using methods such as Rapid Geomorphic Assessment (RGA) and Bank Erosion Hazard Index (BEHI)/Near Bank Stress (NBS). Determine if the tools can be made available as a plugin to the Riverscapes framework, which is being developed by Utah State University through NRCS funding. Riverscapes tools such as VBET (Valley Bottom Extraction Tool) will be used to delineate channel and floodplain segments for which channel stability indices will be derived. These indices will be used to classify the probability of channel bed and bank erosion. The developed tools will be tested on the ARS Goodwin Creek, MS, and Little Washita River, OK, CEAP watersheds, the Missisquoi River watershed, VT, or other watersheds that have historic data available on channel adjustment.