Requiem for the Santa Cruz

Requiem for the Santa Cruz
Title Requiem for the Santa Cruz PDF eBook
Author Robert H. Webb
Publisher University of Arizona Press
Total Pages 297
Release 2014-06-12
Genre Nature
ISBN 0816530726

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"Over the millennia, the drainageway we now call the Santa Cruz River has seen many ebbs, flows, and floods. Throughout its long history, the river has meandered. It has flowed on the surface. It has carved deep fissures, and it has widened and narrowed.As readers of Requiem for the Santa Cruz learn, these are events that also have taken place in historic times. Authored by an esteemed group of scientists, Requiem for the Santa Cruz thoroughly documents this river, which flows through Tucson, Arizona, as a prime example of arroyo cutting, a process where heavy rains cut down through rock to create deep channeling. Each chapter provides a unique opportunity to chronicle the arroyo legacy, evaluate its causes, and consider its aftermath. Using more than a century of observations and collections, the authors reconstruct the physical, biological, and cultural circumstances of the river's entrenchment, widening, and subsequent partial filling. Today, communities everywhere face this conundrum: do we manageephemeral rivers through urban areas for flood control, or do we attempt to restore them to some previous state of naturalness? Requiem for the Santa Cruz carefully explores the channel-change legacy, the efficacy of attempts to stabilize it, and the nascent attempts at river restoration to give a long-term perspective on management of rivers in arid lands. Tied together by authors who have committed their life's work to the study of arid-land rivers, this book offers a touching and scientifically grounded requiem for the Santa Cruz and every southwestern river"--

The Santa Cruz River in Pima County

The Santa Cruz River in Pima County
Title The Santa Cruz River in Pima County PDF eBook
Author Hugh A. Holub
Publisher
Total Pages 47
Release 1987
Genre Santa Cruz River
ISBN

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Channel Change on the Santa Cruz River, Pima County, Arizona, 1936-86

Channel Change on the Santa Cruz River, Pima County, Arizona, 1936-86
Title Channel Change on the Santa Cruz River, Pima County, Arizona, 1936-86 PDF eBook
Author John T. C. Parker
Publisher
Total Pages 58
Release 1995
Genre River channels
ISBN 9789995794415

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Requiem for the Santa Cruz

Requiem for the Santa Cruz
Title Requiem for the Santa Cruz PDF eBook
Author Robert H. Webb
Publisher University of Arizona Press
Total Pages 297
Release 2021-11-30
Genre Nature
ISBN 0816547505

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In prehistoric times, the Santa Cruz River in what is now southern Arizona saw many ebbs, flows, and floods. It flowed on the surface, meandered across the floodplain, and occasionally carved deep channels or arroyos into valley fill. Groundwater was never far from the surface, in places outcropping to feed marshlands or ciénegas. In these wet places, arroyos would heal quickly as the river channel revegetated, the thriving vegetation trapped sediment, and the channel refilled. As readers of Requiem for the Santa Cruz learn, these aridland geomorphic processes also took place in the valley as Tucson grew from mud-walled village to modern metropolis, with one exception: historical water development and channel changes proceeded hand in glove, each taking turns reacting to the other, eventually lowering the water table and killing a unique habitat that can no longer recover or be restored. Authored by an esteemed group of scientists, Requiem for the Santa Cruz thoroughly documents this river—the premier example of historic arroyo cutting during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when large floodflows cut down through unconsolidated valley fill to form deep channels in the major valleys of the American Southwest. Each chapter provides a unique opportunity to chronicle the arroyo legacy, evaluate its causes, and consider its aftermath. Using more than a collective century of observations and collections, the authors reconstruct the circumstances of the river’s entrenchment and the groundwater mining that ultimately killed the marshlands, a veritable mesquite forest, and a birdwatcher's paradise. Today, communities everywhere face this conundrum: do we manage ephemeral rivers through urban areas for flood control, or do we attempt to restore them to some previous state of perennial naturalness? Requiem for the Santa Cruz carefully explores the legacies of channel change, groundwater depletion, flood control, and nascent attempts at river restoration to give a long-term perspective on management of rivers in arid lands. Tied together by authors who have committed their life’s work to the study of aridland rivers, this book offers a touching and scientifically grounded requiem for the Santa Cruz and every southwestern river.

The Lessening Stream

The Lessening Stream
Title The Lessening Stream PDF eBook
Author Michael F. Logan
Publisher University of Arizona Press
Total Pages 332
Release 2006-09-01
Genre Nature
ISBN 9780816526055

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Newcomers to Tucson know the Santa Cruz River as a dry bed that can become a rampaging flood after heavy rains. Yet until the late nineteenth century, the Santa Cruz was an active watercourse that served the region’s agricultural needs—until a burgeoning industrial society began to tap the river’s underground flow. The Lessening Stream reviews the changing human use of the Santa Cruz River and its aquifer from the earliest human presence in the valley to today. Michael Logan examines the social, cultural, and political history of the Santa Cruz Valley while interpreting the implications of various cultures' impacts on the river and speculating about the future of water in the region. Logan traces river history through three eras—archaic, modern, and postmodern—to capture the human history of the river from early Native American farmers through Spanish missionaries to Anglo settlers. He shows how humans first diverted its surface flow, then learned to pump its aquifer, and today fail to fully understand the river's place in the urban environment. By telling the story of the meandering river—from its origin in southern Arizona through Mexico and the Tucson Basin to its terminus in farmland near Phoenix—Logan links developments throughout the river valley so that a more complete picture of the river's history emerges. He also contemplates the future of the Santa Cruz by confronting the serious problems posed by groundwater pumping in Tucson and addressing the effects of the Central Arizona Project on the river valley. Skillfully interweaving history with hydrology, geology, archaeology, and anthropology, The Lessening Stream makes an important contribution to the environmental history of southern Arizona. It reminds us that, because water will always be the focus for human activity in the desert, we desperately need a more complete understanding of its place in our lives.

Santa Cruz River, Paseo de Las Iglesias, Pima County, Arizona

Santa Cruz River, Paseo de Las Iglesias, Pima County, Arizona
Title Santa Cruz River, Paseo de Las Iglesias, Pima County, Arizona PDF eBook
Author
Publisher
Total Pages 518
Release 2005
Genre
ISBN

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Climatic Variability and Flood Frequency of the Santa Cruz River, Pima County, Arizona

Climatic Variability and Flood Frequency of the Santa Cruz River, Pima County, Arizona
Title Climatic Variability and Flood Frequency of the Santa Cruz River, Pima County, Arizona PDF eBook
Author Robert H. Webb
Publisher
Total Pages 69
Release 1990
Genre Floods
ISBN

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