The China Creek Report is done.

The China Creek Report, final version, is done. This very interesting (and ongoing) project is a study of geomorphology and restoration potential of a little creek running through the Lewis & Clark Community College campus in Godfrey, Illinois (just north of Alton). We're working on this with Rip Sparks, one of my favorite river scientists.

The aerials at left (click to enlarge) show how the area has changed since the 1930's. It was in pretty bad shape from overgrazing then, but the creek now suffers from extreme incision and urbanization very common in the highly-erodable loess-covered landscapes around St. Louis.

During the project the College gave gave the creek a name--a wry reference to the ubiquitous broken bits of china in its bed (left over from years of trash dumping) and to its rapid incision towards, well, you can guess.

Link to a PDF version of the report (22mb) here.

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