Bear Cr Jumps Into Road During Flood

[vern]

I was not ever able to attend any of his courses. The cost was prohibitive for me individually and I couldn't get sponsorship. However, when his designs and work on Western streams first appear on the scene I looked at the images and designs and commented to one (I worked closely with) who had attended that it more or less seemed to me that what he had was more or less a variation of a "V" weir (flipped), with a center rock in the middle flow.

I could see what he was doing, keeping the concentration of flow into the center of the streambed to scour and maintain the integrity.

However, he's been criticized for some of the failed practices over the years and I think it's a bit unfair because of the locations and the volumes of flow. Too much. For what they are, they are really good. They are not a cure-all.

I go by this motto = one-size fits all when there's only one to fit.

That structure and design is excellent for use in an appropriate place in the overall length of a stream slope, but each practice has its place.

 

[vern]

Got distracted. It's high school musical night. I'm probably not alone.

But the gist of it is that unless you are trying to create a truly artificial situation - you got to get out and investigate. The survey rods and slopes and historic flow records are necessary, but not the end of it, only the beginning. Each stream is different because each place on this planet is different and each section of flow is slightly different.

Rough it out with engineering, but finesse it in the field.

That doesn't go over so well with some of the office bureaucrats. Some of them don't understand that life and reality is dynamic.

One guy who was strictly tied to desk calculations and reports didn't even understand that the length of a stream changes over time.

But they do. It can be XX number of units length for 20 years and then average XX+126 number of units length the next 20. It all depends on hydrologic cycles, solar cycles, human activities, forest maturation stages, etc.

Later. Got to catch a show.

 

[Chaz]

vern wrote:
Got distracted. It's high school musical night. I'm probably not alone.

But the gist of it is that unless you are trying to create a truly artificial situation - you got to get out and investigate. The survey rods and slopes and historic flow records are necessary, but not the end of it, only the beginning. Each stream is different because each place on this planet is different and each section of flow is slightly different.

Rough it out with engineering, but finesse it in the field.

That doesn't go over so well with some of the office bureaucrats. Some of them don't understand that life and reality is dynamic.

One guy who was strictly tied to desk calculations and reports didn't even understand that the length of a stream changes over time.

But they do. It can be XX number of units length for 20 years and then average XX+126 number of units length the next 20. It all depends on hydrologic cycles, solar cycles, human activities, forest maturation stages, etc.

Later. Got to catch a show.

My view is that too much has been constructed in floodplains, and that floodplains have never been considered as a part of the whole system. In fact floodplains have pretty much been ignored. A flood plain should be viewed as a part of the stream as a whole and be left undeveloped. Of course it's hard to go back, but the flood insurance laws in this country have been totally misused as a development opportunity by developers and the real estate people.
This puts development in the way of a floodplain and prevents a floodplain from doing what nature intends, diverting the flood of a stream when it is out of its banks, and slowing the force of a flood.
Rosgen is wrong in trying to channel flows.