Theses and Dissertations Collection

As our climate changes and urban sprawl continues to expand, it becomes increasingly important to quantify and track impacts on the environment. Rivers and streams are continuously changing due to high flows and sediment transportation caused by both natural and anthropogenic means. Specifically scour and deposition influence the structural stability of bridges, damns, and other structures, as well as influencing behaviors of fish and other organisms within rivers. This thesis defense tests a novel methodology to monitor streambed elevation changes and relates thermal properties of the sediment to sediment porosity based on daily variations of stream water temperatures. The method uses one-dimensional heat advection and diffusion equations to determine streambed elevations. The same equations are also used to determine thermal properties of the sediment, which may provide insight to how the thermal property relates to sediment composition.