Big Barren Creek - Watershed Monitoring
Scope
The U.S. Forest Service is involved in an experiment, known as the Missouri Pine-Oak Woodland Restoration Project: a landscape-scale restoration project that includes the use of prescribed burning as a tool for vegetation recovery. Due to public concerns that prescribed burning is negatively impacting water quality through increased soil erosion while increasing flood frequency due to the removal of leaf litter and ground vegetation cover, the U.S. Forest Service has partnered with OEWRI/MSU to plan and implement studies which assess soil, sediment, channel, and flooding conditions to better understand the effects of forest management on water quality and flooding.
The long-term goal is the creation and implementation of a watershed restoration and improvement project which will include upland vegetation treatment sites and stream or bottomland areas. In addition to addressing the concerns of the public, the study will also evaluate soil conditions and stream stability as associated with long-term watershed improvement projects within two priority watersheds: Big Barren Creek and the headwaters of Big Barren Creek.
Objectives
- Determine soil, water, and sediment impacts of vegetation management practices in comparison to other management practices
- Use geomorphic and GIS assessment methods to evaluate downstream changes in channel form, flood capacity, stability, and substrate with the Big Barren Creek watershed related to: (a) historical land disturbance, (b) contemporary land disturbance, (c) infrastructure such as crossings, channelization, and ad-hoc BMPs, and (d) climate change
Partners
U.S. Forest Service
The Nature Conservancy, Missouri Chapter
Funding
U.S. Forest Service
Theses
2019
- Geomorphic and Land Use Controls on Headwater Channel Morphology in Mark Twain National Forest, by Grace F. Roman [.pdf]
- Historical Land Use Influence on Fine-Grained Sedimentation in Channel and Floodplain Deposits in a Forested Missouri Ozark Watershed, by Katy Nicole Reminga [.pdf]
- Step-Pool Channel Morphology, Forcing Effects, and Geomorphic Classification in the Ozark Highlands, SE Missouri, by Triston Ralland Rice [.pdf]
2017
- Geomorphic Characteristics and Sediment Transport in Natural and Channelized Reaches of Big Barren Creek, Southeast Missouri, by Matthew S. Thies [.pdf]
- Geomorphic Disturbance and Anthropogenic Modifications in Big Barren Creek, Mark Twain National Forest, Southeast Missouri, by Rachel A. Bradley [.pdf]
- Geomorphic Effects of Logging Railbeds on an Ozarks Headwater Stream, Mark Twain National Forest, Missouri, by Nickolas S. Bradley [.pdf]
- Influence of Prescribed Burning on Upland Soil Properties in Mark Twain National Forest, Southeast Missouri Ozarks, by Megan Lynn Hente [.pdf]