Mapping yet another tortured river...the Mighty Bill Williams River, AZ
It is tortured river season in my office. Lately, I have been tackling Nevada's mighty Walker River and its shrinking terminal lake (new term is terminus lake...but that is a bit soft); and Oregon's Owyhee River and its travails with lava and landslides; but now I am back on to the Mighty Bill Williams River of Arizona. You know, the Bill Williams River.
Included below is a snippet of the map I am working on. Shown are 6 generations of lines that document major changes in the channel, most since a dam was finished in the late 60s. One day soon, this map will actually make sense, I promise.
The BWR is a special case. It is a roughly 35 mi stretch of river that traverses the hot desert below the confluence of two rivers that collectively drain more than 5000 square miles of western Arizona. Alamo Dam sits just below the confluence and traps essentially all of the sediment that would otherwise have gone down the BWR and to the Colorado River (well, at least to Lake Havasu). Also important to note is that the pre-dam BWR could attain peak discharges ranging up to 100,000 cfs, whereas the post-dam BWR can hardly exceed 7000 cfs owing to the outlet works of the dam. Thus, large runoff events that would have otherwise blasted through the system in a week or less (Spikes) are now converted to protracted, flat-topped hydrographs that lumber through the channel for up to several weeks to months (Bricks). Recall that these bricks are also sediment-free except for the sed picked up in the channel below the dam.
The result is an interesting experiment in channel change, sediment budgeting, and inadvertent (or otherwise) tamarisk farming.
I won't be posting daily updates of this map, so don't worry. Be assured, however, that I will make a lot of noise when I finally finish it. This one is a long, long, long, time coming. Just ask the sponsors.
Some other BWR info:
