Winooski River Float Trip

NAMES: ______

______

Day 5. Floating the Winooski – River Landforms and Processes in the Field

Description: We will use canoes to float the Winooski River and observe its morphology while discussing the history of the river and germane physical processes. We will bring GPS to measure our position along the river and plot our locations on laminated maps.

Specific skills and knowledge: By the end of this day, you should understand spatial relationships between different fluvial landforms in the field, tell simple landscape history stories based on observing field evidence, have a better local sense of place, and an understanding of how the Winooski River functions as a link between the land and the lake. You should appreciate that rivers are dynamic and change over time leaving evidence of past behavior.

Gear: Garmin 12 GPS units, laminated maps, laminated photos, pH pen, conductivity meter, sample tubes for ICP. Digital cameras. Long tape. Citrus. Distance meter. Depth meter or weighted tape.

During the trip, we will stop many times to observe features more closely and to make measurements. During the trip we will travel two or three people to a canoe.

MAKE SURE THE PERSON IN THE STERN HAS HAD CANOEING EXPERIENCE AND CAN STEER!

Every canoe will have a GPS unit Use the GPS “mark”, average, and save commands to save site locations. Take corresponding notes for each site in your notebooks. 1. During the trip, you should look for and if at all possible find and measure the location of, the following.

OBSERVATION EASTING NORTHING evidence for past high water events evidence of ice damage to vegetation point bar/cut bank pairings evidence of human modification of the channel evidence for flood plain aggradation resulting from deforestation in the 1800s outcrops of older river or glacial sediments movement of sediment down slope into the river waste water discharge pool riffle topography the impact of woody debris on the river bed rock channel alluvial channel evidence of 1927 flood mid channel island floodplain terrace evidence for the conveyance of sediment non point source polluters agricultural impact to the river stream bank stabilization 2. During the trip, we will attempt to make a flow measurement and compare our reading to the USGS gauge --- this is always a challenge in a moving river too big to wade! Last year we came within 5%..dumb luck? amazing skill??

Width (m)

Average Depth (m)

Surface Velocity (to get average velocity, multiply by 0.85) (m/s) Time = Distance =

Discharge (m3/s) calculated =

Discharge (ft3/s) calculated =

Discharge (ft3/s) (USGS from http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv? site_no=04290500) YOU CAN CHECK THIS WHEN YOU GET HOME!=