This event has been cancelled due to illness. We will try to reschedule for fall semester.
Speaker: Dr. Andrew Miller
Department of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland – Baltimore County
Co-sponsor: School of Earth and Climate Sciences
Dr. Miller is interested in the interaction between watershed form, hydrologic response, and fluvial morphology with particular focus on interactions between flood processes and channel and valley-floor boundary conditions. In recent years this work has focused primarily on small urban watersheds which experience extreme floods relative to watershed size with much greater frequency than is observed in other landscapes. He is also interested in the geomorphic transformation of the landscape associated with urban development, which can now be quantified at much finer resolution than was possible in the past; and with the implications of landscape transformation for hydrologic processes, flowpaths and residence times, including but not limited to floods. Ongoing research, in collaboration with his colleagues at the UMBC Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education, includes work on the connection between patterns of urban development and impacts on the water cycle, work on the impacts of stream restoration on watershed hydrologic response and sediment yield, and work on the relative effectiveness of stormwater management on storm response in urban watersheds. A recent project that funded work by a M.S. student investigated the rate of remobilization of “legacy” sediment from Maryland Piedmont floodplains and assessment of the relative importance of historic mill dam deposits in supplying sediment to Piedmont streams. Dr. Miller is also involved in a team monitoring and assessment of the geomorphic impacts of dam removal and the fate and transport of sediment stored behind dams, particularly with the anticipated removal of the 40-foot-high Bloede Dam on the Patapsco River just 10 minutes from campus.
