West Fork White River Watershed: The Impacts of Streambank Erosion “Restoration of Priority Reaches Project Plan”

The Watershed Conservation Resource Center and local partners have received a grant to develop a locally based plan to reduce accelerated streambank erosion in the West Fork watershed. Funding for this project is provided through a USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service “Conservation Partnership Initiative” grant. Click here for more information about this innovative project.

Assessment of Sediment and Nutrients in the Blossom Way watershed, Rogers, Arkansas

The WCRC is a partner along with the City of Rogers, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, University of Arkansas, and the Arkansas Water Resources Center to identify sources and to reduce sediment for the Blossom Way watershed which drains a portion of the City of Rogers in Northwest Arkansas. The WCRC will be responsible for identifying the sources of sediment and nutrients within the watershed. The WCRC has collected streambank erosion data for over 300 individual streambanks using a Bank Erosion Hazard Index and will use this information along with direct measurements to estimate sediment loading resulting from streambank erosion. Click here for a recent article published in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette about this project.

Geospatial Inventory and Assessment of Sediment from Unpaved Roads in the North Big Creek and Dry Fork Creek Watersheds

The WCRC partnered with the Nature Conservancy Arkansas Field Office to evaluate unpaved roads in two rural watershed in the Ozark Mountain Physiographic region. The WCRC evaluated 80 miles of unpaved roads in the North Big Creek watershed and 60 miles in the Dry Fork Creek watershed. The project included two primary elements: 1) development of a GIS based inventory of unpaved road conditions and 2) estimation of sediment loads from unpaved roads entering the stream network using the U.S. Forest Service Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) road model.