Congratulations to Garrett Blauch – MS graduate summer 2018

Garrett Blauch defended his MS thesis on “Abundance, Mobility, and Geomorphic Effects of Large Wood in Urban Streams” on June 19, 2018. He then won 3rd place in the University Council on Water Resources conference poster competition less than two weeks later.

Garrett spent hundreds of hours in 11 stream reaches in the Cleveland area, getting to know every detail of the wood and geomorphology of each stream. How showed that as impervious surface cover increases, the amount of large wood in the stream decreases, but mobility of that wood goes up. This happens even though the reaches Garrett studied were surrounded by a forested buffer. The wood did not appear to have strong geomorphic effects on the stream channel, but pool spacing was correlated with the spacing of wood jams.

Garrett’s work was supported by a Geological Society of America student research grant and scholarships from the Department of Geology at Kent State University. We’re thankful to Cleveland Metroparks for allowing us to study streams in their parks.

We’re working on getting a manuscript ready for submission to Geomorphology later this summer, but for now, if you’d like to read Garrett’s thesis, you can find it at the OhioLink Electronic Thesis Depository.

Right now, Garrett is interviewing for jobs, so if you need a really top-notch geomorphologist who loves field work, let me know and I’ll pass along his contact information.

Garrett Blauch measures wood in a wood jam along an urban stream in his study. May, 2018