Title: Establishing a monitoring programme for the Allt a’Mharcaidh river restoration project: Monitoring sites and initial surveys
Abstract: The Allt a’Mharcaidh is a stream located on the western side of the Cairngorm
Mountains, Scotland. The catchment rises to 1111m above sea level (ECN, 2015) and
drains via the River Feshie to the River Spey. Although originally naturally meandering,
a stream section of approximately 1150m was artificially straightened in the early1800s (Henderson, 2014) to power saw-mills on the River Feshie and to ease the
floating of timber downstream. Despite changes in ownership and catchment land-use
over the intervening two centuries, this section of the Mharcaidh has remained
straightened.
In 2014, a restoration programme for the site was initiated with several objectives
(Henderson, 2014) including:
1. enhancing sediment transport to improve the morphology of the straightened
channel;
2. improving the stream’s connection with the flood plain;
3. creating erosion and deposition features to improve stream habitat.
This was implemented through the addition of woody debris along the stream and the
(re-)opening of sediment sources to allow for gravel injection. In addition, riparian tree
planting has been undertaken along the course of the straightened section (Spey
Fishery Board, 2014).
In October 2015, a programme of monitoring at the Allt a’Mharcaidh was established
by UCL MSc Aquatic Science students to ascertain changes in stream morphology and
substrate at a location where woody debris had recently been introduced. A second
‘control’ section, with no added debris, was later established a few hundred metres
upstream. The aim of this monitoring programme is to develop a long-term data-set of
morphological changes during MSc field classes undertaken annually in October. This
document describes the initial condition of the ‘experimental’ and ‘control’ sampling
stretches of the Mharcaidh at the start of this programme as a base-line against which
to assess any future change.
Publication Year: 2017
Publication Date: 2017-02-01
Language: en
Type: article
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