Rivers are conduits for transport of fresh water, sediment and nutrients throughout the landscape. Humans manage rivers for water supply, power generation, flood control and navigation. These needs often conflict with ecological functions of rivers, such fish migration. My research focuses on understanding how rivers respond to changes, ranging from long-term variations in tectonics or climate to short-term shifts in dam function or land use. I link measurements of channel morphology from high-resolution airborne lidar digital elevation models with field-based measurements of stream processes.
Current Graduate Students and Projects
- Michael Armstrong: Tidal Channel Suspended Sediment Dynamics on a Salt Marsh Island in Southern New Jersey
- Ian Dulin: Nitrogen Isotopic Composition of Northern New England Lake Sediments
- Audrey Turcotte: Geomorphic Effects and Habitat Impacts of Large Wood in Passive and Active Restoration in New England
- Sarah Jonathan: Developing chronologies of mass accumulation rates in thirteen Vermont and New York lakes
- Megan Kopp: The influence of lake-level management and climate change on the Sandy Pond barrier spit, eastern shore of Lake Ontario, New York
Recent Graduate Students
- Xinyi Zeng: The influence of dams on the sediment supply from the Parker River watershed to the Plum Island Sound estuary (2020)
- James LeNoir: Post-glacial sedimentation in Ossipee Lake, New Hampshire (2019)
Recent Publications ( * = Boston College student coauthors)
- Cook, T.L., Snyder, N.P., Oswald, W.W. and Paradis, K., 2020, Timber harvest and flood impacts on sediment yield in a postglacial, mixed-forest watershed, Maine, USA, Anthropocene, v. 29, doi: 10.1016/j.ancene.2019.100232.
- Johnson, K.M.*, Snyder, N.P., Castle, S.*, Hopkins, A.J.*, Waltner, M.*, Merritts, D.J., and Walter, R.C., 2019, Legacy sediment storage in New England river valleys: Anthropogenic processes in a postglacial landscape, Geomorphology, v. 327, p. 417-437, doi: 10.1016/j.geomorph.2018.11.017.
- Lisius, G.L.*, Snyder, N.P., and Collins, M.J., 2018, Vegetation community response to hydrologic and geomorphic changes following dam removal, River Research and Applications, v. 34, n. 4, p. 317-327, doi: 10.1002/rra.3261.
- Collins, M.J., Snyder, N.P., Boardman, G., Banks, W.S.L., Andrews, M., Baker, M.E., Conlon, M.*, Gellis, A., McClain, S., Miller, A., and Wilcock, P., 2017, Channel response to sediment release: insights from a paired analysis of dam removal, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, v. 42, p. 1636-1651, doi: 10.1002/esp.4108.
- Hopkins, A.J.*, and Snyder, N.P., 2016, Performance evaluation of three DEM-based fluvial terrace mapping methods, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, v. 41, n. 8, p. 1144-1152, doi: 10.1002/esp.3922.
