Timeline to Finish the Semester

Hello everyone, as this course is coming to a close it is time to start wrapping up our watershed blogs.  I have learned so much not only about the New River Watershed, but all of the watersheds in the course.  Because this is my last course in the MNR program and I do not have any sort of job lined up yet I believe my best course of action is to archive my various blog posts in my portfolio on canvas. 

Some of you have mentioned that you were confused on the geomorphology of the New River in the posts about its superposition and watershed capture.  One of my goals is to revisit these two posts and try to clear it up.  This could be done through further research or by visiting a professor I had in a geomorphology course during undergrad here at Virginia Tech.

After consulting with Dr. Egenrieder about this plan of action in the next few weeks I will begin the process of reevaluating these posts and individually adding them to my portfolio.  I also think it would be beneficial to me if I enhanced my work on dendrology because this was really the first time I have had any sort of dendrology work. 

 

After a plan has been agreed upon in the next two weeks I will take the following two weeks to refine and compile my posts.  My schedule this time of the year is generally pretty open so I do not see any issues arising with this timeline.  See you all next time.

 

 -Parker

Invasives in the New River Watershed

The management of invasive species are a challenge for almost all ecosystems in todays day and age.  The New River Watershed is very isolated and rugged in many places which has helped it to remain free from many invasives. This can also make it very detrimental when a new invasive is introduced.



-Parker

Watershed Equipment

Hello everyone, instead of focusing on a single specific piece of equipment this week I decided to go back to my undergraduate days and dive a little deeper into a program I learned about in a water quality and monitoring course.  There is a program here at Virginia Tech called LEWAS Lab.  The lab collects real time data for a small watershed stream here on the Blacksburg campus.  This is also relevant to my overall case study because Webb branch of Stroubles Creek is in the New River Watershed.



The LEWAS Lab has garnered international attention for the success it has had in monitoring stream health. If there were more monitoring stations throughout any watershed we could learn which tributaries and microwatersheds have the largest impacts on overall watershed health and why.  This would make overall conservation of the watershed easier. 

As a side note it is really cool to see just how sensitive the monitoring equipment is for LEWAS Lab.  using real time data it is possible to see spikes in turbidity and volume when it starts raining, or dissolved solids as road salt enters the water way when snow begins to melt.  I posted the link to the LEWAS website below if you wanted to check for yourself.

http://www.lewas.centers.vt.edu/

- Parker

Threats: Watershed Capture

Watershed capture is a unique process that poses a threat to a watershed in equilibrium.  The New River is in the process of actively being captured. Eventually, through natural processes this ancient river system will be no more. Though stream capture can be observed in several places and its past preceding's can be seen in wind gaps where rivers once flowed.  This case is unique because stream capture is occurring across the eastern continental divide which has the potential to impact sediment loads, migration patterns, and endemic species.





-Parker

Dendrology

The plants found in watersheds are an important component in the ecology and function of the area. While there are many species that can overlap the boundaries of a watershed each watershed is made up of a unique makeup of various species.

The New River Watershed is characterized by rugged and mountainous valleys through the valley and ridge and Appalachian plateau provinces.  The eight tree species in the slides below are all endemic species off these landscapes in the New River Watershed.  Some of them have economic value while others are simply distinctive species found in the watershed.

Antecedent Drainage of the New River

Hello everyone, this week I explored what tells us the New River is one of the oldest rivers in the world. I created a PowerPoint and pasted the slides below. I have updated the information in an effort to clarify what makes the New River an antecedent river vs. a superimposed river.

I found learning about the geomorphic processes that created this unique landscape and watershed very interesting and I hope you did too. Until next time.

- Parker

Watershed Delineation

Hello everyone, it took me a while to remember how to navigate around in ArcGIS but I think I was finally able to delineate the New River watershed.  I started by downloading the free trial for ArcGIS Pro to my laptop. In the past I had only dealt with GIS programs on desktops in computer labs so this was already new to me.  I'm sure there were quicker and simpler ways to delineate the watershed but I got there eventually.

After downloading several datasets for watersheds and drainage basins in the states that the watershed encompasses I became a bit frustrated because the unit projections didn't quite line up.  I eventually was able to download the watershed boundary dataset for the entire country.  I then ran a query to select for the watershed boundaries within the New River watershed based on the HUC 12 system.  It took me a while to figure out the correct syntax for the expression as well.

After the correct drainages were selected I switched the selection and deleted the remaining drainages in the layer so that only the New River watershed remained.  From there I was able to run statistics and calculate the total area of the watershed.  Below are screen captures of the watershed as well as the statistics for the area of the watershed.

 

 

The total calculated area for the New River Watershed is 4,418,716.2 acres.

 

 

The elevation at the beginning of the south fork of the New River is 3104 feet above sea level 

and 653 feet above sea level at the point where the New River becomes the Kanawha River giving a net elevation change of 2451 feet. This is a span of 320 miles giving a gradient of 7.7 feet per mile.

 

 

 

Counties in the watershed include Ashe, Alleghany, Watuga, in North Carolina Grayson, Carrol, Wythe, Pulaski, Montgomery, and Giles in Virginia Mercer, Summers, Raleigh, and Fayette in West Virginia.  The main tributaries are the Bluestone River, East River, Little River, Indian Creek, and the Greenbrier River.



I enjoyed getting back into using GIS as I have not done so in a few years, I know I'm still rusty but I look forward to improving my skills over the course of the semester.  Until next time.

-Parker