This thesis explores the challenges of monitoring stream hydrology in a warmer and wetter climate in the Kenai Peninsula (KP) and Prince William Sound (PWS) region of Southcentral Alaska, located on the traditional territories of the Dena’ina, Ahtna, Alutiiq/Sugpiaq, and Eyak People. The physical and climatological extremes of this region...
Diking and channelizing in the Toppenish Creek basin, associated with irrigated agricultural development, has altered its natural ecosystem function and hydraulic processes. We seek to answer two research questions: if surface waters are diverted for aquifer recharge in the winter, will this water be available for ecosystem function in the...
Coastal landslides and erosion are major natural hazards resulting in unstable slopes, constituting immense challenges to modern infrastructure. Developing, maintaining, and performing risk assessments of infrastructure on, or close to, these hazards require a detailed understanding of the geophysical processes destabilizing the slope. These efforts start with the collection of...
Over the last 150 years, Oregon white oak habitat in the Willamette Valley has been converted to support grass crops, orchards and vineyards, cities, and conifer forests, nearly extirpating it from the Willamette Valley. Yet Oregon white oak offers many ecosystem services to the Willamette Valley and its residents. Recent...
Headwater streams represent the majority of the drainage area of a river network and provide many critical functions supporting aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem health. The riparian zones that surround these streams are transitional areas between terrestrial and stream ecosystems, which provide key habitat for aquatic and terrestrial organisms, especially during...
As the western United States continues to experience prolonged drought that is extending water deficits and threatening ecosystem resilience and socioeconomic systems, it will be vital to understand the relationship between water use and transport for proper water resource management. This is especially important to the agricultural areas of the...
We have sufficient evidence that our historical management of natural resources is not sustainable. Food production is stagnating or declining. Nonrenewable energy sources on which the energy sector has historically depended are being rapidly depleted. Water resources, for which the energy and food sectors compete, are being depleted and impaired....
The development of ecohydrological frameworks and theories under the ongoing global climate crisis depends on the development of new and advanced ecohydrological measurements. Currently, numerous of datasets have been collected at plot and ecosystem levels to understand the complex interactions of along the soil, plant, and atmosphere continuum. The development...