Legacy deposits, milldams, water quality, and environmental change in the Four Mile Creek watershed, southwestern Ohio
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Published:December 10, 2018
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CiteCitation
Jason A. Rech, Bartosz Grudzinski, William H. Renwick, Christina N. Tenison*, Marvi Jojola#, Michael J. Vanni, T. Race Workman, 2018. "Legacy deposits, milldams, water quality, and environmental change in the Four Mile Creek watershed, southwestern Ohio", Ancient Oceans, Orogenic Uplifts, and Glacial Ice: Geologic Crossroads in America’s Heartland, Lee J. Florea
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ABSTRACT
Streams in the Midwest of the United States have experienced major changes in their watersheds since European settlement that have altered sediment loads, runoff, nutrient concentrations, and the abundance of woody debris. Moreover, the near extirpation of keystone species such as beaver, and the construction of dams and impoundments (e.g., milldams, causeways, reservoirs, small ponds, etc.), have had impacts on the entrainment of sediments, the connectivity between tributaries, main channels, and floodplains, and channel form. As stream restoration efforts increase, how do we restore streams to their ‘natural’ state? Can streams restored to a pre–European settlement condition maintain equilibrium under current land use? Here we examine the impact of post-European settlement changes to a small (432 km2) watershed in southwestern Ohio that is largely representative of rural watersheds in the Midwest. We examine the impact of nineteenth-century milldams, report the results of a 21-year study of nutrient and sediment concentrations in the upper portion of the watershed during a shift from conventional to conservation tillage, and assess the potential impact of the return of beavers on stream sediment and nutrient concentrations. Our objective is to understand how streams have been impacted by humans over the past 250 years, and to identify strategies for ‘restoring’ streams in the Midwest.
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Contents
Ancient Oceans, Orogenic Uplifts, and Glacial Ice: Geologic Crossroads in America’s Heartland

This volume, prepared for the 130th Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Indianapolis, includes compelling science and field trips in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio. A wealth of geologic and human history collides in the Midwest, a confluence that led to the growth of America's industry over the past two centuries. Guides in this volume depict this development from the establishment of New Harmony, the birthplace of American geology, through the construction of Indianapolis's modern skyline. Underpinning this growth were the widespread natural resources-limestone, coal, and water-that built, powered, and connected a growing nation. Take a journey through the Heartland to sand dunes, outcrops, quarries, rivers, caves, and springs that connect Paleozoic stratigraphy with the assembly of Gondwana, continental glaciation with Quaternary geomorphology and hydrology, and landscape with the human environment.
GeoRef
- agriculture
- bedload
- Cenozoic
- channels
- connectivity
- conservation
- dams
- drainage
- ecosystems
- field trips
- floodplains
- fluvial environment
- fluvial features
- Holocene
- hydrology
- land use
- Midwest
- nutrients
- Ohio
- Quaternary
- reservoirs
- riparian environment
- runoff
- sediment transport
- sediments
- stream sediments
- streams
- tillage
- transport
- tributaries
- United States
- water quality
- watersheds
- southwestern Ohio
- river log
- Four Mile Creek
- stream restoration