Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID MT_2024_Henson

Quantifying geomorphic resilience in rivers to hydroclimatic extreme events

Institute: Montana
Year Established: 2024 Start Date: 2024-09-01 End Date: 2025-08-31
Total Federal Funds: $2,500 Total Non-Federal Funds: $1,175

Principal Investigators: Riley Henson

Project Summary: Climate change is exacerbating hydrological extremes and associated large-scale disturbances. To adapt to climate change in fluvial environments, urban planning, disaster management, natural resource management, and more could benefit from a framework that accounts for increasingly extreme hydroclimatic events within dynamic environments that allow for change. This research investigates how rivers respond to and recover from extreme floods, including why some rivers are more resilient to floods while others may experience unraveling and shifts to new conditions. This project is part of an effort to quantify geomorphic resilience in a broad set of river systems, to help predict how the landscape reacts to disturbances to better prepare for natural disasters such as floods.