Verde Watershed Research and Education Program at Northern Arizona University

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Essential in the social and economic development of this nation, the harnessing of water resources has relied heavily upon the construction of dams. Until recently, this utilitarian view of our water resources has been widely supported. Scientific investigations into the affects dams have on aquatic and riparian ecosystems have helped to realize the consequences of dam construction. The recent realization of dams’ detrimental effects coupled the fact that numerous dams are nearing the end of their structural lifetimes, means that removal is becoming an increasingly popular fate for dams in the United States.

To fully understand ecosystem response to dam decommissioning and removal activities, the scientific community has called for long-term, detailed monitoring programs to accompany dam removal projects. Many in the scientific community have advocated that an interdisciplinary approach to research and monitoring can provide a better understanding of ecosystem response than more traditional, reductionist approaches. This thesis evaluates one interdisciplinary research team’s approach to investigate ecosystem response to dam decommissioning activities on a travertine-depositing stream at Fossil Creek, Arizona. From this evaluation many important lessons have been learned about conducting interdisciplinary research in this particular context. One objective of this thesis is to synthesize the lessons learned by interdisciplinary researchers and develop a collaborative research model to improve the effectiveness of collaborative, interdisciplinary approaches to research and monitoring on future dam decommissioning projects.

As stream morphology will likely respond to decommissioning activities in profound ways, and because changes in stream morphology will drive changes throughout the entire ecosystem, monitoring stream morphology is arguably the most important monitoring need in programs accompanying dam removals. A second objective of this thesis is to evaluate the methodology used to monitor changes in streambed and channel morphology adopted by the interdisciplinary research team at Fossil Creek, AZ. While the physical surveying methodology does have some shortcomings, the methodology employed is sufficient to detect changes in stream morphology as they occur in response to dam decommissioning and removal activities.