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Roadside ditches
 What
are some topics for student ditch research?
There are lots of possibilities.
A few are listed here:
- How do various ditch management
strategies compare with the amount of sediment carried in the runoff water?
- How does the total length of streams
in your watershed compare with the total length of ditches?
- Where in the stream channel network
(1st order, 2nd order, impermanent, etc.) do your ditches connect? How do
the ditches compare with the stream in terms of size, water flow, vegetation,
and habitat for aquatic organisms?
- How would you predict that the
ecology and hydrology of a stream are altered by ditch drainage? Can you think
of ways to test your prediction?
- What types of substrates did
you find in the ditches you observed? Were they grassy, open dirt, or covered
with concrete? What impacts would each of these produce on the quantity and
quality of water transported into streams and lakes?
- How could you measure sediment
transport and use these measurements to compare impacts of different ditch
management practices?
- What types of land uses occur
along your study ditches? What sorts of contaminants are likely to be carried
from these land uses through ditches into streams?
How can you
get started?
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