Located in the south fork of the Cache la Poudre River are structures of curious shapes. Made of logs cut from nearby forest stands and mostly submerged in the water, these structures serve to natural processes that once occurred on the landscape in greater frequency.
Recently, Colorado State University researchers have brought together individuals from many different fields of study to determine how attempts to slow water flow are affecting water quality in an area where large wildfires have burned through the watershed.
CSU researchers are monitoring two types of dams that serve to slow streamflow and the transportation of sediment downstream: PALs, or post-assisted log structures, replicate once common occurring tree jams in the waterway; meanwhile, BDAs, or beaver dam analogs, are human-made structures that mimic beaver dams…