Streambank stabilization projects represent a key element in the plan to reduce sediment in Kansas waterways and reservoirs. In this project, investigators worked to quantify the environmental benefits of government-sponsored streambank stabilization and restoration projects in northeastern Kansas, with a special focus on sites within the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas and Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Indian Reservations.
For this project, researchers inserted a set of bank pins above stabilized and unstabilized reaches at both sites and monitored those sites for erosion in order to document erosion and deposition rates. In addition to the monitoring, they partnered with Haskell Indian National University students to conduct macroinvertebrate sampling on the Kickapoo sites to conduct bio-assessment surveys documenting aquatic organism presence at stabilized sites, as compared to nearby unstabilized reaches. This project also compared the performance of cedar revetments to rock vein and weir stabilization projects.
Project Coordinator:
Charles J Barden, Horticulture and Natural Resources, Kansas State University