Hydraulics and geomorphology of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon

In 1905, severe floods on the Colorado River caused extensive damage in the Imperial Valley of California, and political pressure arose for construction of flood control/storage dams on the river. The development and regulation of the river expanded rapidly until, at the present time, the Colorado River is sometimes referred to as "the world's most regulated river'. The purpose of this chapter is to show how an understanding of hydraulic dynamics in individual stretches of the river near rapids can help us interpret the shape of the river channel and the geomorphic and hydrologic history of floods and erosion over the past thousands to perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. -from Author