Start Date
10/20/2016
End Date
10/20/2018
Description
The United States has more than 3.5 million miles of rivers and streams that, along with closely associated floodplain and upland areas, comprise corridors of great economic, social, cultural, and environmental value. These corridors are complex ecosystems that include the land, plants, animals, and network of streams within them. They perform a number of ecological functions such as modulating streamflow, storing water, removing harmful materials from water, and providing habitat for aquatic and terrestrial plants and animals. Stream corridors also have vegetation and soil characteristics distinctly different from surrounding uplands and support higher levels of species diversity, species densities, and rates of biological productivity than most other landscape elements.
Many miles of rivers and streams have been seriously impacted by human activity. Restoring these steams to a more natural condition is a rapidly expanding field involving a multi-disciplinary approach. This 6-hour online course is the second in a series of courses that defines the issues and provides technical guidance in a wide variety of principles involved in steam restoration. This course covers stream corridor processes, characteristics and functions. It includes hydrologic and hydraulic processes, geomorphic processes, physical and chemical characteristics, biological community characteristics and functions and dynamic equilibrium. It is not necessary to complete all of these courses or complete them in order, but the order of the courses provides a logical progression through the subject matter.
Distance Learning
Yes
Course Equivalency
No
Subjects
Remediation / Brownfields
Water / Stormwater Management
Health, Safety and Welfare
Yes
Hours
6.0
Learning Outcomes
By the conclusion of this course, attendees will understand the following:
•Where stream flow comes from and what processes affect or are involved with stream flow
•How hydrology is different in urban stream corridors
•The factors that affect the channel cross section and channel profile
•How water and sediment are related
•Where sediment comes from and how it is transported downstream
•What a channel should look like in cross section and profile
•How channel adjustments occur
•The important relationship between a stream and its floodplain
•The major chemical constituents of waters
•The relationships between physical habitat and key chemical parameters
•How the chemical and physical parameters are critical to the aquatic life in a stream corridor
•The natural chemical processes in a stream corridor and water column
•How disturbances in the stream corridor affect the chemical characteristics of stream water
•The important biological components of a stream corridor and what biological activities and organisms can be found within a stream corridor
•How the structure of stream corridors support various populations of organisms
•The structural features of aquatic systems that contribute to the biological diversity of stream corridors
•Some important biological processes that occur within a stream corridor
•The role fish have in stream corridor restoration
•The major ecological functions of stream corridors and how these ecological functions are maintained over time
•How to determine if a stream corridor is stable
•How these functions are related
•How a stream corridor responds to all the natural forces acting on it (i.e., dynamic equilibrium)
Instructors
Mark Peterson, P.E., M.ASCE
Course Codes
RV-5123
Provider
Vector Solutions