The course integrates perspectives from leading academic researchers and consulting practitioners in river restoration. Lectures, exercises, field trips and case studies cover a range of restoration approaches from state-of-the-art hydraulics and sediment transport, to historical analysis and context-specific considerations ranging from urban infrastructure to natural resources. In addition to field data collection techniques, the course uses spreadsheet models to calculate sediment transport and channel design, map and aerial photo analysis, and sequential problem solving in approaching restoration of fluvial processes. The course includes field trips to the Truckee River and streams in the Lake Tahoe Basin, and workshops on restoration problems faced by participants for discussion where we develop ideas on analytical approaches and recommend resources.
This course emphasizes integration of hydrology, hydraulics, sediment transport, geomorphology, aquatic ecology, fisheries, and riparian ecology, and includes field measurements, mapping, and interpretation.
This course is brought to you by RiverLab at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design.
For a more specialized course intended for those who wish to understand and apply the principles of sediment transport to alluvial channel assessment and design, we recommend the short course on Sediment Transport in Stream Assessment and Design taught at Utah State University, Logan. Principles of open channel flow and sediment transport are combined with watershed-scale, hydrologic and sediment source analysis to place channel assessment and design in the appropriate context. This course builds upon the principles of river geomorphology taught in the Sagehen course. Its lead instructor (Peter Wilcock) is co-instructor of the Sagehen course.
COVID-19 considerations: Based on improving vaccination trends, we plan to offer the course again in 2022, in person. Requirements will be determined by public health guidelines in effect in August 2022, but may include wearing face masks, maintaining social distance, limiting how many people stay in cabins overnight or use the bathrooms at the same time, and mandatory vaccination prior to attending the course. Virtually all activities are already held outdoors anyway, but to minimize the possibility of virus spreading, we may limit the number of people occupying each cabin, and ask others to pitch tents on the station grounds (about half of the participants each year pitch tents anyway, as it is a very nice environment for camping).