![\"bathymetric](\"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/bathymetric-sandbar.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cIt\u2019s a tough place to do research,\u201d said Joe Hazel<\/strong>, research associate at NAU. \u201cYou would be hard pressed to find anywhere else in the world where a continuous monitoring record of environmental change was made with direct measurements in a remote river setting.\u201d<\/p>\n At stake is a river ecosystem that has been as challenging to understand as to manage over decades of manipulation since the completion of Glen Canyon Dam. The issue of sandbar deposition and erosion, and the ability to determine just how much sand is in the water and where it comes from, has evolved along with attitudes about how the river should be managed.<\/p>\n \u201cTrying to figure out how\u00a0much sand is in the system and when to do floods has been the driving force behind our work,\u201d Hazel said. \u201cWe tell the managers when the sandbars have eroded to a certain condition or level.\u201d<\/p>\n Hazel and research associate Matt Kaplinski<\/strong> have embarked on nearly 100 river trips since 1989, when they became involved in NAU research that had been ongoing for a decade under pioneering researcher Stan Beus<\/strong>, now NAU regents\u2019 professor emeritus of geology. Beus was instrumental in NAU\u2019s securing of a grant from the Bureau of Reclamation to operate a sandbar monitoring program. Upon Beus’\u00a0retirement, Rod Parnell<\/strong>, NAU professor of earth science and environmental sustainability, assumed the title of principal investigator.<\/p>\n \u201cThat first year we ran 20 river trips,\u201d Hazel said. The federal government\u2019s continued interest in river monitoring\u2014especially during high-flow experiments in 1996 and 2008\u2014led NAU to produce a trove of information, some of it through methods that have not changed much over the decades, but that has also inspired cutting-edge innovations.<\/p>\n A painstaking process of producing handwritten coordinates from theodolites, measurement devices that have long been the mainstay of surveying, eventually was made easier through digital data collectors. But even then, in what Hazel called \u201cthe old days,\u201d river levels would need to be lowered in order to expose sandbars for measurement.<\/p>\n Because 85 percent or more of the sediment is under water, Kaplinski led the development of a multibeam bathymetric system that used sonar to measure submerged sandbars.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s really sophisticated and expensive equipment, and had never before been retrofitted to be used in a canyon setting,\u201d Hazel said, pointing out that the technology is similar to what is being used in the search for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.<\/p>\n Still, collecting the data entails mastering difficult conditions. Using rafts powered by outboard motors, researchers guide equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars through rapids, trying not to capsize or slam into a rock.<\/p>\n One payoff of all that work is an approach that appears to endorse continued high-flow experiments as a way to build sandbars over time. Their presence contributes to a downstream ecosystem, which lies within the Glen Canyon Recreation Area and Grand Canyon National Park, considered a World Heritage Site<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s cool that Glen Canyon Dam is now being partially managed to benefit downstream resources instead of just generating hydro power and for water storage,\u201d Hazel said.<\/p>\n And now, after a long and \u201cpainful migration process,\u201d the decades of NAU data are available online for anyone to see. What had been relegated to notebooks and outdated floppy disks stored in an old metal cabinet, and generations of incompatible software, is now part of an interactive online database. Researchers around the world can benefit from the findings.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is leaving our legacy,\u201d Hazel said. \u201cNow all this data is being served to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"