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SUMMARY The suspended sediment study is a continuation of the 2001 Water Quality Assessment and Modeling study. In that project, it was determined that additional field data, coupled with continuously-recorded tubidity data collected by the State of California Division of Water Resources (DWR), could improve the estimate of annual sediment load from the watershed. DRI's principal goal in this project is to estimate the sediment load for the Truckee River in California, and to characterize the existing range of sediment flux and variability according to total amount, maximum, duration, timing and frequency of sediment transport events. Our primary objective in support of this goal is to develop a sediment surrogate that can be measured continuously in the Truckee River. It is our working hypothesis that the natural range of the aforementioned characteristics of sediment loading support the beneficial uses of the Truckee River, and that loads outside the natural range of variability are damaging to beneficial uses. This work supports development of numeric targets and load allocations for the Truckee River sediment Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) in California. The figure below shows the location of sampling points on the main stem of the Truckee River.  This study is funded by the Lahontan Region of the California Water Quality Control Board. The Principal Investigator for this project is Gayle Dana. The final report for this project can be downloaded here in PDF format.  |