Legacy Morphologies: Channel Avulsions and Historical Engineering Structures Drive Form and Process in the Lower Yuba and Feather Rivers, California

Geomorphic changes in the lower Yuba and Feather Rivers due to hydraulic mining provide a chance to study centennial-scale processes. Channel changes over 150 years were determined using channel-bank stratigraphy, geochemical signatures (total Hg, grain-size distributions, bulk geochemistry, fallout radionuclides, and Sr/Nd isotopes), and spatial analyses of high-resolution topographic data, historical maps, and aerial photos. Repeated avulsions and broad erosion/deposition patterns are shown, including a downstream shift in activity through time. In the 20th century, both rivers experienced deep main-channel incision and floodplain alluviation of natural levees and abandoned channels. Buried trees rooted in pre- mining soils indicate the Feather has not returned to pre-mining base levels below the Yuba confluence. Early engineering works controlled channel responses and recovery. For example, the Feather River avulsed into a channel dredged through Shanghai Bend (c.1907) so it now crosses resistant Quaternary alluvium over a 3-m knickpoint bench that could soon be breached. Moreover, levees and channelization near the Yuba-Feather confluence at Marysville (c.1905) narrowed and deepened flows, encouraging the bed incision noted by Gilbert. Effects of legacy sediment on channel processes are well known. Here, channel recovery was also constrained by channel morphologies engineered with boulder wing dams and revetment in the Yuba and channelization and levees in the Feather. The resulting bed incision reduces lateral connectivity between channels and floodplains and increases sediment conveyance. Historical and anthropogenic perspectives are essential to explaining channel dynamics at these scales. Unless models of channel and floodplain evolution recognize historical changes and engineering works, they may miss crucial components of geomorphic change and potential impacts downstream. In such systems, the historical dimension is essential to river management, water-quality and ecological assessments, flood-hazard mitigation, and river restoration.