Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses Winter 4-10-2015 Landforms along the Lower Columbia River and the Influence of Humans Charles Matthew Cannon Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Part of the Geology Commons, and the Geomorphology Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Cannon, Charles Matthew, "Landforms along the Lower Columbia River and the Influence of Humans" (2015). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 2231. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.2228 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible:
[email protected]. Landforms along the Lower Columbia River and the Influence of Humans by Charles Matthew Cannon A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Geology Thesis Committee: Andrew G. Fountain, Chair Jim E. O’Connor Scott F. Burns Portland State University 2015 Abstract River systems, such as the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest, USA have been influenced by human activities, resulting in changes to the physical processes that drive landform evolution. This work describes an inventory of landforms along the Columbia River estuary between the Pacific Ocean and Bonneville Dam in Oregon and Washington. Groupings of landforms are assigned to formative process regimes that are used to assess historical changes to floodplain features. The estuary was historically a complex system of channels with a floodplain dominated by extensive tidal wetlands in the lower reaches and backswamp lakes and wetlands in upper reaches.