I. Home

II. Short Curriculum Vitae

III. Recent Publications
a) abstracts of recent work
b) complete list of publications

IV. Stream Ecology Textbook

V. River Raisin Watershed Project
a) Project Statement
b) Abstract of USDA Grant
c) River Raisin Publications
d) GIS in the Raisin
e) GIS at SNRE

VI. Recent Student's Thesis Work

VII. Aquatic Conservation Links

GIS In The River Raisin Project

GIS (Geographic Information Systems) analysis plays a major role in the River Raisin Project. We use GIS to examine how landscape-scale changes in the Raisin's basin - mostly the extent of agriculture, but also urbanization and defo restation - affect the stream ecosystem. Land use/cover data provided by the Michigan Resource Information System (MIRIS), a statewide digital archive of spatial data, allow us to see what the landscape looks like, and calculate the fraction of land area in each land cover/use.

One can also determine land use/cover within 100-m riparian zone along each tributary or stream segment. A GIS can be coupled eith a hydrologic model such as AGNPS in order to analyze the loading of sediments and nutrients in to the river resulting from a storm event. An astonishing amount of data can be accessed over the web - check out EPA's "Surf Your Watershed" site. We use GIS-based models to investigate how s torms of varying magnitude combined with different land cover scenarios affect sediment and nutrient yields from the Raisin. The pre-settlement land cover is a good baseline agent which to evalute best management scenarios.