Sheep Draw (PS01): U-076 - Poudre River at Sheep Draw
Project: Poudre River at Sheep Draw (U-076)
- PI: Dr. Sharon Bywater-Reyes
- Project Lead: Keith Williams
- Funding Source: None
Description
Educators visited the Cache la Poudre River at Sheep Draw Open Space (City of Greeley Natural Areas) in northern Colorado. According to the Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed, "The Cache la Poudre River Watershed drains approximately 1,056 square miles above the canyon mouth west of Fort Collins, Colorado. The watershed supports the Front Range cities of Fort Collins, Greeley, Timnath, and Windsor. In an average year, the watershed produces approximately 274,000 acre feet of water. More than 80 percent of the production occurs during the peak snowmelt months of April through July." Click here for more details on the Poudre Watershed
Objective
In 2013, the Front Range and plains of Colorado experienced extensive flooding. The region experienced the average annual rainfall in one week. There was extensive damage to infrastructure and in some cases the erosion of 1000-years’ worth of weathered material (Anderson et al., 2015). Near Greeley, significant portions of the Poudre trail were impacted as the river topped its floodplain and eroded its banks. In a series of exercises from “Geoscience Field Issues Using High-Resolution Topography to Understand Earth Surface Processes” students create a SfM model of either Area of Interest 1 or Area of Interest 2. Here, the entire area flown is included. The photos used for the SfM analysis can be found here: Bywater-Reyes, Sharon, "Structure from Motion at Sheep Draw" (2020). UNC Faculty Open Course Materials. 7.