Requiem for the Santa Cruz

Requiem for the Santa Cruz
Author: Robert H. Webb
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2014-06-12
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0816530726

"Over the millennia, the drainageway we now call the Santa Cruz River has seen many ebbs, flows, and floods. Throughout its long history, the river has meandered. It has flowed on the surface. It has carved deep fissures, and it has widened and narrowed.As readers of Requiem for the Santa Cruz learn, these are events that also have taken place in historic times. Authored by an esteemed group of scientists, Requiem for the Santa Cruz thoroughly documents this river, which flows through Tucson, Arizona, as a prime example of arroyo cutting, a process where heavy rains cut down through rock to create deep channeling. Each chapter provides a unique opportunity to chronicle the arroyo legacy, evaluate its causes, and consider its aftermath. Using more than a century of observations and collections, the authors reconstruct the physical, biological, and cultural circumstances of the river's entrenchment, widening, and subsequent partial filling. Today, communities everywhere face this conundrum: do we manageephemeral rivers through urban areas for flood control, or do we attempt to restore them to some previous state of naturalness? Requiem for the Santa Cruz carefully explores the channel-change legacy, the efficacy of attempts to stabilize it, and the nascent attempts at river restoration to give a long-term perspective on management of rivers in arid lands. Tied together by authors who have committed their life's work to the study of arid-land rivers, this book offers a touching and scientifically grounded requiem for the Santa Cruz and every southwestern river"--

Wadi Flash Floods

Wadi Flash Floods
Author: Tetsuya Sumi
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 559
Release: 2021-10-11
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9811629048

This open access book brings together research studies, developments, and application-related flash flood topics on wadi systems in arid regions. The major merit of this comprehensive book is its focus on research and technical papers as well as case study applications in different regions worldwide that cover many topics and answer several scientific questions. The book chapters comprehensively and significantly highlight different scientific research disciplines related to wadi flash floods, including climatology, hydrological models, new monitoring techniques, remote sensing techniques, field investigations, international collaboration projects, risk assessment and mitigation, sedimentation and sediment transport, and groundwater quality and quantity assessment and management. In this book, the contributing authors (engineers, researchers, and professionals) introduce their recent scientific findings to develop suitable, applicable, and innovative tools for forecasting, mitigation, and water management as well as society development under seven main research themes as follows: Part 1. Wadi Flash Flood Challenges and Strategies Part 2. Hydrometeorology and Climate Changes Part 3. Rainfall–Runoff Modeling and Approaches Part 4. Disaster Risk Reduction and Mitigation Part 5. Reservoir Sedimentation and Sediment Yield Part 6. Groundwater Management Part 7. Application and Case Studies The book includes selected high-quality papers from five series of the International Symposium on Flash Floods in Wadi Systems (ISFF) that were held in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2020 in Japan, Egypt, Oman, Morocco, and Japan, respectively. These collections of chapters could provide valuable guidance and scientific content not only for academics, researchers, and students but also for decision-makers in the MENA region and worldwide.

Alluvial Fan Flooding

Alluvial Fan Flooding
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 183
Release: 1996-11-07
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309055423

Alluvial fans are gently sloping, fan-shaped landforms common at the base of mountain ranges in arid and semiarid regions such as the American West. Floods on alluvial fans, although characterized by relatively shallow depths, strike with little if any warning, can travel at extremely high velocities, and can carry a tremendous amount of sediment and debris. Such flooding presents unique problems to federal and state planners in terms of quantifying flood hazards, predicting the magnitude at which those hazards can be expected at a particular location, and devising reliable mitigation strategies. Alluvial Fan Flooding attempts to improve our capability to determine whether areas are subject to alluvial fan flooding and provides a practical perspective on how to make such a determination. The book presents criteria for determining whether an area is subject to flooding and provides examples of applying the definition and criteria to real situations in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, and elsewhere. The volume also contains recommendations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is primarily responsible for floodplain mapping, and for state and local decisionmakers involved in flood hazard reduction.

Riparian Areas

Riparian Areas
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2002-10-10
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309082951

The Clean Water Act (CWA) requires that wetlands be protected from degradation because of their important ecological functions including maintenance of high water quality and provision of fish and wildlife habitat. However, this protection generally does not encompass riparian areasâ€"the lands bordering rivers and lakesâ€"even though they often provide the same functions as wetlands. Growing recognition of the similarities in wetland and riparian area functioning and the differences in their legal protection led the NRC in 1999 to undertake a study of riparian areas, which has culminated in Riparian Areas: Functioning and Strategies for Management. The report is intended to heighten awareness of riparian areas commensurate with their ecological and societal values. The primary conclusion is that, because riparian areas perform a disproportionate number of biological and physical functions on a unit area basis, restoration of riparian functions along America's waterbodies should be a national goal.

Integrated Urban Water Management: Arid and Semi-Arid Regions

Integrated Urban Water Management: Arid and Semi-Arid Regions
Author: Larry Mays
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2014-04-21
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1482266202

The Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM) is an emerging approach to managing the entire urban water cycle in an integrated way, which is key to achieving the sustainability of urban water resources and services. The IUWM incorporates: the systematic consideration of the various dimensions of water, including surface and groundwater resources, q

Drought in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions

Drought in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions
Author: Kurt Schwabe
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 510
Release: 2013-07-08
Genre: Science
ISBN: 940076636X

Offering a cross-country examination and comparison of drought awareness and experience, this book shows how scientists, water managers, and policy makers approach drought and water scarcity in arid and semi-arid regions of Spain, Mexico, Australia, South Africa and the United States.

Recent Advances in the Modeling of Hydrologic Systems

Recent Advances in the Modeling of Hydrologic Systems
Author: D.S Bowles
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 654
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9401134804

Modeling of the rainfall-runoff process is of both scientific and practical significance. Many of the currently used mathematical models of hydrologic systems were developed a genera tion ago. Much of the effort since then has focused on refining these models rather than on developing new models based on improved scientific understanding. In the past few years, however, a renewed effort has been made to improve both our fundamental understanding of hydrologic processes and to exploit technological advances in computing and remote sensing. It is against this background that the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Recent Advances in the Modeling of Hydrologic Systems was organized. The idea for holding a NATO ASI on this topic grew out of an informal discussion between one of the co-directors and Professor Francisco Nunes-Correia at a previous NATO ASI held at Tucson, Arizona in 1985. The Special Program Panel on Global Transport Mechanisms in the Geo-Sciences of the NATO Scientific Affairs Division agreed to sponsor the ASI and an organizing committee was formed. The committee comprised the co directors, Professor David S. Bowles (U.S.A.) and Professor P. Enda O'Connell (U.K.), and Professor Francisco Nunes-Correia (Portugal), Dr. Donn G. DeCoursey (U.S.A.), and Professor Ezio Todini (Italy).

Guidelines for the Geologic Evaluation of Debris-flow Hazards on Alluvial Fans in Utah

Guidelines for the Geologic Evaluation of Debris-flow Hazards on Alluvial Fans in Utah
Author: Richard E. Giraud
Publisher: Utah Geological Survey
Total Pages: 21
Release: 2005-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1557917299

The Utah Geological Survey (UGS) developed these guidelines to help geologists evaluate debris-flow hazards on alluvial fans to ensure safe development. Debris-flow hazard evaluations are particularly important because alluvial fans are the primary sites of debris-flow deposition and are also favored sites for development. The purpose of a debris-flow-hazard evaluation is to characterize the hazard and provide design parameters for risk reduction. The UGS recommends critical facilities and structures for human occupancy not be placed in active debris flow travel and deposition areas unless the risk is reduced to an acceptable level. These guidelines use the characteristics of alluvial fan deposits as well as drainage-basin and feeder-channel sediment-supply conditions to evaluate debris-flow hazards. The hazard evaluation relies on the geomorphology, sedimentology, and stratigraphy of existing alluvial fan deposits. Analysis of alluvial-fan deposits provides the geologic basis for estimating frequency and potential volume of debris flows and describing debris-flow behavior. Drainage-basin and feeder-channel characteristics determine potential debris-flow susceptibility and the volume of stored channel sediment available for sediment bulking in future flows.