Bill Zeedyk and induced meandering in Altar Valley, Arizona – Part Two

Bill Zeedyk describing some of the aims and coming effects of volunteer-installed on-the-ground work at the Elkhorn/Las Delicias Watershed Restoration Demonstration Project site in Altar Valley, Arizona by using induced meandering within the water channel with one-rock-high baffles and one-rock dams seeded with native restoration seed mixes.

Bill also covers:
• How his approach is an integrated art of geology, hydrology, and ecology
• Baffle construction
• How sediment flows in water like a stew on a conveyor belt continually moving downstream
• What originally caused the erosion that this project is striving to heal
• Basics of one-rock structure construction

Induced meandering uses baffles to purposely nudge the water’s flow within a channel to erode the opposite bank in order to widen and lengthen the channel as it reduces the channel’s steepness, and reduces the speed of the flowing water and its ability to carry sediment. Sediment from the eroded bank is then caught downstream by a one-rock dam and another baffle nudging water against the other bank of the channel.

The intent of the project was to reverse the trend of the down-cutting water channels with ephemeral flow by shifting from erosion of soil to deposition of soil. It has done that. Filmed 1-14-2012 in the first phase of the project’s build out.

See before and after photos over a span of 10 years at my blog post: Shifting dehydrating, degrading ephemeral water channels to better-vegetated, rehydrating, agrading channels with Bill Zeedyk-directed efforts in Altar Valley, Arizona