GROUNDWATER STORAGE POTENTIAL IN DEGRADED MEADOWS ALONG LAST CHANCE CREEK, PLUMAS COUNTY, CALIFORNIA A Thesis Presented to the faculty of the Department of Geology California State University, Sacramento Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE In Geology by James R. Readle SPRING 2014 GROUNDWATER STORAGE POTENTIAL IN DEGRADED MEADOWS ALONG LAST CHANCE CREEK, PLUMAS COUNTY, CALIFORNIA A Thesis by James R. Readle Approved by: __________________________, Committee Chair Kevin J. Cornwell, Ph.D. __________________________, Second Reader Timothy C. Horner, Ph.D. ____________________ Date ii Student: James R. Readle I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for the thesis. _____________________________, Department Chair ______________________ Timothy C. Horner, Ph.D. Date Department of Geology iii Abstract of GROUNDWATER STORAGE POTENTIAL IN DEGRADED MEADOWS LAST CHANCE CREEK, PLUMAS COUNTY, CALIFORNIA by James R. Readle This study assessed the groundwater storage potential of degraded meadows along the main course of Last Chance Creek (LCC). The stream is located in the portion of the North Fork Feather River Watershed that lies in the Basin and Range geomorphic province of northeastern California. The project focused on former meadow areas greater than 50,000 square meters, and employed several software tools, primarily Arc-GIS and Google Earth, to survey the main branch of LCC and to create the criteria necessary to define the meadow extents. These criteria were subsequently employed to select and delineate the eleven degraded meadow areas for this project. ArcGIS tools were used to develop an initial set of digital elevation models (DEMs) for the surface elevation of each meadow’s surface. A second set of DEMs was created for the water table surfaces beneath each meadow. The approach for this set used a triangular irregular network (TIN) tool in ArcMap to create a hypothetical sediment trough for each meadow with a triangular cross section. iv This geometry reflected the elevation of the water table which was assumed to rise in a straight line from its lowest point at the bottom of each meadow’s deepest incised gully to the surface elevation at the meadow edges on both sides of the gully. Once these two sets of DEMs were constructed for each meadow, the Cut-Fill tool of ArcGIS was employed to produce a raster data set whose values reflected the sediment volume in the triangular trough of meadow sediment potentially available for groundwater storage. This volume was then factored by assumed total porosities and effective porosities to determine the volume of potentially storable groundwater. An alternative mathematical approach was also used to calculate volumes based on a hypothetical sediment trough with a rectangular cross section reflecting an assumed constant water table elevation. Together, these two approaches bracket the maximum and minimum groundwater storage potential in eleven degraded meadow areas of Last Chance Creek. Results suggest the methodology used in this study can be used with existing and assumed data to provide a quick and inexpensive screening tool for assessing the groundwater potential for meadow restoration projects. ________________________________, Committee Chair Kevin J. Cornwell, Ph.D. _______________________________ Date v DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to my wife, Betty Readle, for her unfailing love and support of my quest to pursue an academic passion and attain this master’s degree in geology. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank the following individuals for their support, help, and mentorship throughout my attendance in the geology department at California State University, Sacramento, including researching and writing this thesis: Dr. Kevin Cornwell, CSUS Dr. Timothy Horner, CSUS Dr. David Evans, CSUS Dr. Brian Hausback, CSUS Dr. Barbara Munn, CSUS Richard Hilton, Sierra College Timothy McCrink, California Geological Survey Robert Moscovitz, California Geological Survey vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Dedication .......................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... vii List of Tables .......................................................................................................................x List of Figures ................................................................................................................... xii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Objective ........................................................................................................... 3 1.2 Background ....................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Sierra Nevada Meadows ................................................................................... 4 1.4 Last Chance Creek Meadows............................................................................ 6 1.5 Study Benefits ................................................................................................... 8 1.6 Approach ........................................................................................................... 9 2. STUDY AREA .......................................................................................................... 14 2.1 Description ...................................................................................................... 14 2.2 Geologic Setting.............................................................................................. 14 2.3 Hydrogeologic Controls .................................................................................. 16 2.4 Hydrologic Setting .......................................................................................... 18 2.5 Climate ............................................................................................................ 20 2.6 Topography ..................................................................................................... 21 3. PRIOR WORK .......................................................................................................... 29 3.1 Selected Restoration Projects .......................................................................... 29 3.2 Meadow Research Projects ..............................................................................29 3.2 4. METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................... 37 4.1 Summary ......................................................................................................... 37 viii 4.2 Assumptions .................................................................................................... 38 4.3 Overall Approach .............................................................................................40 4.4 Specific Tasks ................................................................................................. 41 4.5 Data Constraints and Possible Error Sources.................................................. 52 5. ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................... 76 5.1 Results and Analysis ....................................................................................... 76 5.2 Conclusions ..................................................................................................... 80 Appendix A: Acronyms and Abbreviations .....................................................................85 Appendix B: Tributary Creeks to Last Chance Creek .................................................... 86 References……………... .................................................................................................. 87 ix LIST OF TABLES Page Table 2-1: Precipitation records for weather stations closest to Last Chance Creek ..........................................................................................................23 Table 2-2: Four weather stations closest to Last Chance Creek with UTM coordinates and separation differences in distances and elevation ............23 Table 3-1: FR-CRM restoration projects completed in the Last Chance Creek Watershed ..................................................................................................32 Table 4-1: Summary of six reaches of Last Chance Creek, as illustrated in Figure 4-2, and their respective gradients ............................................................55 Table 4-2: Summary of gradients for 11 meadow areas of Last Chance Creek ..........55 Table 4-3: Summary of gully depths from cross section data, one set each for MA #2, MA #3, and MA #7, and four cross sections for MA #6 ..............56 Table 5-1: Summary of sediment volumes with groundwater storage potential in the 11 largest degraded meadow areas along main course of Last Chance Creek .............................................................................................82 Table 5-2: Assumed total porosity and effective porosity (high and low percentage values) for 11 degraded meadow areas along main course of Last Chance Creek .............................................................................................82