As part of the Sustainable Futures Speaker Series, Dr. Denise Burchsted will present “Natural Dams and the River Dis-Continuum.”

The billion-dollar river restoration industry relies primarily on the perception that pre-disturbance rivers were free-flowing. Despite the importance of many dam removal projects in restoring anadromous fish runs, this talk emphasizes that not every dam is a bad dam. In particular, remote rivers with limited human influence are dominated by “natural dams,” especially wood jams and beaver dams, which create patchy, discontinuous river systems. These patchy systems have much greater variation in habitat than purely free-flowing ones, which increases their resilience to disturbance and which also increases support for all life stages of critical species such as anadromous fish. This talk presents field research that describes the impacts of natural dams and then describes implications for river restoration when they are included in the pre-disturbance baseline.

Denise Burchsted studies rivers and wetlands across disciplines, with formal training in water resource engineering (BS, University of Connecticut School of Engineering), aquatic ecology (MFS, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies), and fluvial geomorphology (PhD, University of Connecticut School of Liberal Arts & Sciences). As an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Keene State College and as a Professional Engineer, she applies academic rigor to water resources management and design. In addition to her academic research, she has designed dam removals and other fish passage projects, designed salt marsh and freshwater wetland restoration projects, evaluated restoration alternatives in the Everglades, and led non-profit watershed conservation planning efforts.

The Sustainable Futures Speaker Series is presented by the Environment & Community Graduate Program and the Schatz Energy Research Center.

The presentation will take place Thursday, April 3, at 5:30 p.m. in SciB 135.