Something Hidden in the Ranges is designed for readers interested in natural and environmental history and specifically the natural history of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. We all see the largest features of ecosystems - the impressively rugged mountain peaks, the clear blue lakes, and the extensive forests - but each of these readily visible features depends on largely invisible creatures and flows of material and energy. This book draws on a wide array of scientific research to tell stories such as how streams provide energy to the adjacent forest, how lake sediments record the history of pollutants entering the lake with wind-blown dust, and how a network of fungi keeps forests healthy. Individual chapters explore forests at lower and higher elevations and how trees rely on microbes in the soil, in the forest canopy, and even within individual pine needles to obtain the food they need. Other chapters focus on subalpine lakes, mountain streams, beaver meadows, and alpine tundra. Written to be easily understood by any reader, this book will change the way you perceive and think about natural landscapes.

To contemplate an alpine lake or a ribbon of white water twisting down the face of the Rocky Mountains is to appreciate the majesty of this block of bedrock thrust up from Earth's interior, weathering eons of nature's assaults. To learn what humans, in our brief lifespan, have done here is to acquire a sobering sense of our place in the natural world. Ellen Wohl's account of a year in the life of Rocky Mountain National Park reflects a lifelong interest in these rhythms and disruptions. Informed by a deep and intimate understanding of the landscape, her Rocky Mountain journal is a lyrical distillation of experience and knowledge that shows us the century-old national park as a microcosm of the natural world in the thrall of time and humanity. Conducting readers through the park's seasons, Wohl describes the processes that unfold over the ages as continents drift and mountain ranges rise, as glaciers carve the land and profound changes in the atmosphere alter the environment. Working on the landscape in a humbler way are beavers and elk, beetles and, not so humbly, humans, who tinker with natural rhythms in ways big and small, as obvious as logging, road building, and feedlot run-off, and as subtle in the short run as climate change. Along the way, we observe the effects of nature's more violent moments: flash floods that wash out roads and inflict damage downstream, high winds that flatten whole hillsides in minutes, wildfires that strip the woods in an instant or smolder all winter long. A work of quiet power, Rhythms of Change in Rocky Mountain National Park traces Wohl's year-long journey, deftly guiding us through the changing seasons of one of America's most awe-inspiring natural places in all its curiosity and wonder-and in its exposure to the larger forces inexorably altering the natural world.

This work is designed to broaden the scope with which many people regard a river. Rivers are commonly regarded from a very simplistic perspective as conduits for downstream flows of water. In this context, it may be considered acceptable and necessary to engineer the channel to either facilitate such flows (e.g., channelization, levees) or limit flows and store water (e.g., water supply reservoirs, flood control). The book presents the concept of a river as a spatially and temporally complex ecosystem that is likely to be disrupted in unexpected and damaging ways by direct river engineering and by human activities throughout a drainage basin. Viewing a river as a complex ecosystem with nonlinear responses to human activities will help to promote a more nuanced and effective approach to managing river ecosystems and to sustaining the water resources that derive from rivers. In this context, water resources refers to ecosystem services including water supply, water quality, flood control, erosion control, and riverine biota (e.g., freshwater fisheries). Chapters in this book draw extensively on existing literature but integrate this literature from a fresh perspective. General principles are expanded upon and illustrated with photographs, line drawings, tables, and brief, site-specific case studies from rivers around the world.

Rivers are the great shapers of terrestrial landscapes. Very few points on Earth above sea level do not lie within a drainage basin. Even points distant from the nearest channel are likely to be influenced by that channel. Tectonic uplift raises rock thousands of meters above sea level. Precipitation falling on the uplifted terrain concentrates into channels that carry sediment downward to the oceans and influence the steepness of adjacent hill slopes by governing the rate at which the landscape incises. Rivers migrate laterally across lowlands, creating a complex topography of terraces, floodplain wetlands and channels. Subtle differences in elevation, grain size, and soil moisture across this topography control the movement of ground water and the distribution of plants and animals. Rivers in the Landscape, Second Edition, emphasizes general principles and conceptual models, as well as concrete examples of each topic drawn from the extensive literature on river process and form. The book is suitable for use as a course text or a general reference on rivers. Aimed at advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and professionals looking for a concise summary of physical aspects of rivers, Rivers in the Landscape is designed to: emphasize the connectivity between rivers and the greater landscape by explicitly considering the interactions between rivers and tectonics, climate, biota, and human activities; provide a concise summary of the current state of knowledge for physical process and form in rivers; reflect the diversity of river environments, from mountainous, headwater channels to large, lowland, floodplain rivers and from the arctic to the tropics; reflect the diverse methods that scientists use to characterize and understand river process and form, including remote sensing, field measurements, physical experiments, and numerical simulations; reflect the increasing emphasis on quantification in fluvial geomorphology and the study of Earth surfaces in general; provide both an introduction to the classic, foundational papers on each topic, and a guide to the latest, particularly insightful and integrative references.

Dead Wood explores the life and afterlife of three trees growing along a river: a spruce in the Colorado Rockies, a western red cedar in Washington, and a balsam poplar in Canada. Each tree is enmeshed in a biological community during its lifetime and continues to support other forms of life after death as the fallen tree enters a floodplain, a beach, or the open ocean.

"A World of Rivers" explores the confluence of human and environmental change on ten of the great rivers of the world. Ranging from the Yellow River in China to Central Europe's Danube, the book journeys down the most important rivers in all corners of the globe. Wohl shows us how pollution, such as in the Ganges and in the Ob of Siberia, has affected biodiversity in the water. But rivers are also resilient, and Wohl stresses the importance of conservation and restoration to help reverse the effects of human carelessness and hubris. What these diverse rivers share is a critical role in shaping surrounding landscapes and biological communities, and Wohl's book ultimately makes a strong case for the need to steward positive change in the world's great rivers.

Far from being the serene, natural streams of yore, modern rivers have been diverted, dammed, dumped in, and dried up, all in efforts to harness their power for human needs. But these rivers have also undergone environmental change. The old adage says you can't step in the same river twice, and Ellen Wohl would agree--natural and synthetic change are so rapid on the world's great waterways that rivers are transforming and disappearing right before our eyes. "A World of Rivers" explores the confluence of human and environmental change on ten of the great rivers of the world. Ranging from the Murray-Darling in Australia and the Yellow River in China to Central Europe's Danube and the United States' Mississippi, the book journeys down the most important rivers in all corners of the globe. Wohl shows us how pollution, such as in the Ganges and in the Ob of Siberia, has affected biodiversity in the water. But rivers are also resilient, and Wohl stresses the importance of conservation and restoration to help reverse the effects of human carelessness and hubris. What all these diverse rivers share is a critical role in shaping surrounding landscapes and biological communities, and Wohl's book ultimately makes a strong case for the need to steward positive change in the world's great rivers.

The ability of beavers to create an abundant habitat for a diverse array of plants and animals has been analyzed time and again. The disappearance of beavers across the northern hemisphere, and what this effects, has yet to be comprehensively studied. Saving the Dammed analyzes the beneficial role of beavers and their dams in the ecosystem of a river, focusing on one beaver meadow in Colorado. In her latest book, Ellen Wohl contextualizes North St. Vrain Creek by discussing the implications of the loss of beavers across much larger areas. Saving the Dammed raises awareness of rivers as ecosystems and the role beavers play in sustaining the ecosystem surrounding rivers by exploring the macrocosm of global river alteration, wetland loss, and the reduction in ecosystem services. The resulting reduction in ecosystem services span things such as flood control, habitat abundance and biodiversity, and nitrate reduction. Allowing readers to follow her as she crawls through seemingly impenetrable spaces with slow and arduous movements, Wohl provides a detailed narrative of beaver meadows. Saving the Dammed takes readers through twelve months at a beaver meadow in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park, exploring how beavers change river valleys and how the decline in beaver populations has altered river ecosystems. As Wohl analyzes and discusses the role beavers play in the ecosystem of a river, readers get to follow her through tight, seemingly impenetrable, crawl spaces as she uncovers the benefit of dams.

This important and accessible book surveys the history and present condition of river systems across the United States, showing how human activities have impoverished our rivers and impaired the connections between river worlds and other ecosystems. Ellen Wohl begins by introducing the basic physical, chemical, and biological processes operating in rivers. She then addresses changes in rivers resulting from settlement and expansion, describes the growth of federal involvement in managing rivers, and examines the recent efforts to rehabilitate and conserve river ecosystems. In each chapter she focuses on a specific regional case study and describes what happens to a particular river organism-a bird, North America's largest salamander, the paddlefish, and the American alligator-when people interfere with natural processes.

Sparsely settled mountain areas of the world, such as Colorado's Front Range, give an impression of wild, untouched, and unchanging nature. Yet in many cases mountain rivers that appear to be pristine natural systems actually have been impaired as a result of human activities. In this timely and accessible book, Ellen Wohl documents two hundred years of land-use patterns on the Front Range and their wide-ranging effects on river ecosystems. If we hope to manage river resources effectively and preserve functioning river ecosystems, the author warns, we must recognize how beaver trapping, placer mining, timber harvesting, flow regulation, road and railroad construction, recreation, cattle grazing, and other human activities have impaired rivers--and continue to do so. The rivers of the Colorado Front Range are representative of mountain rivers throughout the world: land-use patterns affecting their form and function are little-recognized or -understood. This book fills an important gap with a clear and comprehensive explanation of how rivers are changed by human activity and includes a generous selection of striking historical and contemporary photographs, maps, and diagrams.