Graduate Project
 

Road surface runoff for the Oak Creek watershed: the influence of hillslope and road characteristics

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_projects/wd3761962

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  • Understanding how forest roads interact with hillslope hydrology by intercepting and/or rerouting storm runoff will better enable land managers to reduce erosion related to forest roads. Watershed scale knowledge of how culvert runoff response varies across the landscape would provide valuable information to those individuals designing and maintaining forest road systems. In order to better understand the hydrologic interactions of the hillslope and the road, this study focused on all cross drain culverts in a 3rd order watershed of Oak Creek located in the McDonald/Dunn Research Forest 3 miles west of Corvallis Oregon. Stage recorders measured runoff response for winter months from October to March 2001 to 2002 and data for the January 25, 2002 storm event were analyzed in detail. Instantaneous peak discharge was measured at all culverts with either a crest gauge or a capacitance rod. Those culverts with a capacitance rod measured water height data every 10 minutes and provided a runoff response hydrograph. Fifty-eight of 74 gauged road segments were used in the analysis. Measurable instantaneous peak discharge was received from all 58 cross drain culverts and total runoff volumes were measured at 40 of the road segments. Frequency distributions of the runoff response for both instantaneous peak discharge and total runoff volume follow a right skew distribution. This indicates that a majority of the culverts measured had lower amounts of runoff than the mean and that only a small fraction of the culverts had a large runoff response. Geographic Information System (GIS) coverage for McDonald/Dunn Forest was used to calculate road and hillslope characteristics. The correlation of instantaneous peak discharge for the cross drain culverts to road and hillslope characteristics indicates significant relationship at the 99 % confidence level (p = 0.0030). Road length (p = 0.0029) and elevation (p = 0.0239) are statistically significant at greater than a 90% confidence level. However, the multiple linear regression model only explains 34% of the variability of instantaneous peak discharge. This result indicates it will be difficult to predict variations in runoff. Total runoff volume correlated with road and hillslope characteristics provided a similar result. None of the independent watershed/road variables were found to be significant predictors.
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