Date of Award

Spring 2020

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Santa Clara : Santa Clara University, 2020.

Department

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering

First Advisor

Laura Doyle

Second Advisor

Edwin Maurer

Abstract

The Upper Truckee River (UTR) Basin is the largest watershed that drains into Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. Channelization and degradation of historic floodplains have caused fine sediment particles to erode from river banks and reduce the clarity of Lake Tahoe. In addition, as climate change worsens, it is expected that the hydrology of the region will not adhere to historical trends. To help solve these issues a climate analysis was conducted for a watershed near the UTR using four global climate models (due to lack of data availability and resources), and a scoured reach of the river was redesigned to restore the historic floodplain. While the climate analysis proved too variable to apply to the design flow, the channel restoration resulted in a stable bank that is resilient under an expected increase in peak flows due to climate change.

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