Impact of the Rosewood Creek Restoration Project on Suspended Sediment Loading to Lake Tahoe

Abstract: Rosewood Creek is a small, urban creek in the northeastern part of the Lake Tahoe basin. In 2003, the creek was elongated by 975 linear meters to restore a historically sensitive environmental zone and to mitigate the delivery of suspended sediment from upland sources into Third Creek and ultimately into Lake Tahoe. Strategies to reduce suspended sediment loads included: 1) increasing the length of the channel, thereby increasing the distance that sediments must travel before discharging into the higher-velocity waters of Third Creek; 2) providing erosion control measures and a healthy riparian zone around the creek that are capable of mitigating poor water quality; and, 3) routing the creek through five flood-spreading basins. The objectives of this research are to assess what impacts the Rosewood Creek Restoration Project has on the net transfer and particle-size distribution of suspended sediment. Data collected at each site included near-continuous measurements of water discharge, turbidity, specific conductivity, and water temperature. Discrete water samples were collected by an automated vacuum sampler and were analyzed for suspended sediment concentration (SSC) and particle-size distribution. In-stream turbidity was used as a surrogate for SSC by developing linear and sequential linear regression models to describe the relationship between turbidity an