Use of the cottonwood in an investigation of the recent history of a flood plain

Abstract

A ring count of cottonwood trees along the Little Missouri River in western North Dakota has permitted contouring of the age of floodplain forests. The germination and growth of the cottonwood is closely related to the discharge of the river, movement of the channel, and development of the floodplain. The trees, in bands, show an orderly increase in age upvalley and away from the channel. Each band is the result of the rise of a thicket on a riverside sandbar and, thus, a record of recent migrations of the channel. A model of channel migration and sediment transport has been constructed. Evidence indicates that the channel has been within a few feet of its present elevation for the past 150 years.