Frank Magilligan
My teaching and research interests focus primarily on fluvial geomorphology and surface water hydrology. In particular, my research addresses stream channel and watershed response to environmental change – whether the change is generated by natural (e.g. climate change) or anthropogenic (e.g. agriculture, grazing, or logging) causes. For example, I have worked on the geomorphic impacts of catastrophic floods in the Upper Mississippi River as well as glacial outburst floods in Iceland. At a more local level, I have been analyzing the geomorphic impacts of Hurricane Irene that ravaged eastern Vermont in late summer 2011. Currently, I am focusing on the links between channel processes and riparian ecology, especially the role of flow regulation by dams on aquatic and floodplain ecology. This work was recently highlighted in a National Science Foundation online newsletter and PBS.
Carl Renshaw
I am a hydrologist with research interests in the response of rivers and streams to disturbance whether the disturbance is natural (e.g. large floods and climate change) or anthropogenic (e.g. dams, dam removal, and industrial and agricultural legacy contaminants). Much of my work with Frank Magilligan is motivated by the fact that extreme precipitation events are now 67% more common in New England than they were just 30 years ago. And New England has one of the highest densities of dams in the U.S. and is one of the leading regions of dam removal in the U.S. – with the number of dams removed year growing exponentially. Despite the growing number of extreme floods and dam removals, the science of river restoration lags behind its application.