Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program (GCDAMP)

The Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center offers a collection of data resources and online tools -- including web maps, applications, and other content -- that convey scientific information related to on-going monitoring of the Colorado River. Some applications are a culmination of long-term monitoring work, while others are developed around more a specific set of information usually derived...

Introduced rainbow trout and brown trout are considered a threat to the endangered humpback chub in the Colorado River in Grand Canyon. These introduced species eat native fish, but impacts are difficult to assess because predation vulnerability depends on the physical conditions under which predation takes place. We studied how predation vulnerability of juvenile humpback chub changes in response...

Riparian vegetation has increased dramatically along the Colorado River downstream of Glen Canyon Dam since the closure of the dam in 1963. The spatial patterns and temporal rates of vegetation increase occur due to changes in river hydrology, dam operations, and climate. The increase in vegetation, particularly onto otherwise bare sandbars, has impacted recreational, geomorphological, biological...

Economic research at Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center is used to determine economic benefits of outdoor recreation in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area below Glen Canyon Dam and in Grand Canyon National Park, as affected by operation of Glen Canyon Dam. This research identifies recreationists’ preferences for attributes associated with their trips, spending that occurs regionally...

All aquatic invertebrates drift downstream at some point in their life cycle. Invertebrates may drift to find more preferable habitats, to leave the water during their transition from aquatic larvae to terrestrial adults, or accidentally such as when swept off the riverbed by a flood. Regardless, when they enter the drift, invertebrates become particularly susceptible to predation by several...

Aquatic insects live in the water as larvae most of their lives, then emerge onto land for a brief period as winged adults. Sampling these emerged adults on land is therefore a useful tool for understanding the condition of the aquatic insect population that is in the water, particularly in large rivers where sampling the larvae on the river bed is impractical. Our group uses a variety of methods...

At the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center (GCMRC), we are looking for affordable and efficient alternatives and augmentations to our current approaches to monitoring the geomorphic condition of sandbars, terraces and other fine-sediment deposits along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon region, Arizona.