What is BDWS?

_images/bdws.gif

Beaver Dam Water Storage (BDWS) is a collection of Python classes for estimating surface water and groundwater stored by beaver dams. BDWS uses beaver dam capacity estimates from the Beaver Restoration Assesment Tool (BRAT) to place beaver dams along stream reaches, flow direction algebra to determine the area inundated by a dam, and MODFLOW-2005 to model potential changes to groundwater tables from beaver dam construction. BDWS is comprised of three classes. BDLoG (Beaver Dam Location Generator), which generates beaver dam locations along a stream network using BRAT outputs. BDSWEA (Beaver Dam Surface Water Estimation Algorithm), which estimates the amount of water a beaver dam of a given height at a given location could potentially store. BDflopy (Beaver Dam flopy), which uses the existing FloPy python module to automatically parameterize and run MODFLOW-2005 to estimate changes to groundwater storage resulting from beaver dam construction.

Products

Publications

Hafen, K. 2017. To what extent might beaver dam building buffer water storage losses associated with a declining snowpack? Master’s Thesis. Utah State University, Logan, Utah. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/6503/.

Presentations

Hafen, K., and J. M. Wheaton. 2017. Could beaver dams buffer a declining snowpack? Society of Wetland Scientists Pacific Northwest Chapter Meeting. Kelso, Washington. September 26. Slides.

Wheaton, J. M., K. Hafen, W. W. Macfarlane, and N. Bouwes. 2017. Could beaver compete with a declining snowpack? American Water Resources Association Meeting. Snowbird, Utah. May. doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32406.86089. Slides.

Hafen, K. 2017. To what extent might beaver dam building buffer water storage losses associated with a declining snowpack? Thesis Defense. Logan, Utah. April 21. Slides.