Ellen E. Wohl

Ellen E. Wohl Ellen Eva Wohl (born 1962) is an American professor of geosciences, environmentalist, author, and science communicator. Her honors include the Gladys W. Cole Memorial Research Award (in 1994 and again in 2021), the Kirk Bryan Award (2009), the Ralph Alger Bagnold Award (2017), the G. K. Gilbert Award for Excellence in Geomorphological Research (in 2021, shared with David M. Merritt), and the G. K. Warren Prize (2024). Quotes I often think about maps, because so much of what I do involves measurement. To explain features or processes, you must first describe them. In science the description must be precise and Reproducibility reproducible to be accepted, and this requires measurement. Rain Forest Into Desert: Adventures in Australia's Tropical North University Press of Colorado 1994 9780870813344 https://books.google.com/books?id=DqJ-AAAAMAAJ&q=precise+reproducible 169 (204 pages) Rivers are the great shapers of landscape. Rivers transport sediment supplied for hillslope weathering and erosion, in some cases controlling the gradient of the hillslopes (Burbank et al., 1996). As they incise or aggrade to maintain a consistent relationship with their base level, rivers create valleys that in turn influence local climate; provide travel corridors for animals and humans; and support aquatic and riparian ecosystems that contain some of the Earth's highest levels of biodiversity.... Although the study of rivers is well-established, the great majority of investigators have worked on the lowland rivers where most people live. Mountain rivers began to receive increasing attention as a subset of rivers only during the last two decades of the twentieth century. Mountain Rivers Volume 14 of Water Resources Monograph American Geophysical Union 2013 0-87590-318-5 https://books.google.com/books?id=UNv_J3cyL24C&pg=PA1 1 (320 pages; 1st edition 2000) ... relatively few people are aware of how nineteenth- and twentieth-century Land use land-use patterns impacted the mountain rivers of the South Platte River South Platte Drainage basin basin.When I moved to Colorado in 1989, I was impressed by the sparkling water of the mountain rivers, and I too assumed that these were natural, fully functional rivers. It was only after I began to read historical accounts of the Colorado Front Range and to examine the streams more closely that I realized how dramatically they had been altered. I began to think of them as virtual rivers, which had the appearance of natural rivers but had lost much of a natural river's ecosystem functions. Virtual Rivers: Lessons from the Mountain Rivers of the Colorado Front Range Yale University Press 2001 9780300084849 Preface https://books.google.com/books?id=oaN-5vJKx6MC&q=historical+accounts ix–x (210 pages) The Colorado River and its large tributaries historically hosted an extraordinary assemblage of large-river fish species. The Humpback chub humpback chub (Gila cypha), Bonytail chub bonytail (Gila elegans), Colorado pikeminnow Colorado pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus lucius), Roundtail chub roundtail chub (Gila robusta), and Razorback sucker razorback sucker (Xyrauchen texanus) all have morphological adaptation for life in turbid, fast-flowing waters. Most of these species are now Threatened species threatened or Endangered species endangered as a result of flow regulation from dams, Water extraction water withdrawals, and Introduced species introduced nonnative species. Disconnected Rivers: Linking Rivers to Landscapes Yale University Press 2004 9780300103328 https://books.google.com/books?id=hpbGDA9fCAgC&pg=PA23 23 (301 pages) Behind our house lay a Secondary forest second-growth woodland and marsh. Though only a few acres, it constituted wilderness to me. Deer, fox, raccoon, woodchucks, pheasants, and songbirds inhabited the woods. From the maple saplings, I culled poles that I used to build Tipi tepees and lean-tos. I built a shelter each summer and experimented with Indigenous peoples of the Americas Native American Indigenous cuisine of the Americas cookery, substituting ground beef for venison. Then, when I was sixteen, our town decided to join the metropolis. The woodland and marsh were obliterated, replaced with a shopping mall, a church, an apartment complex, and a sunken freeway. I could not have been more hurt if a family member had been attacked. Of Rock and Rivers: Seeking a Sense of Place in the American West University of California Press 2009 9780520943216 https://books.google.com/books?id=cd65WBaP2EIC&pg=PA7 7 (288 pages) Throughout human history, people have settled disproportionately along rivers, relying on the rivers for water supply, Inland navigation transport, fertile agricultural soils, Waste management waste disposal, and food from aquatic and riparian organisms. People have also devoted a tremendous amount of time and energy to altering river processes and form. We are not unique in this respect: ecologists refer to various organisms, from beaver to some species of Riparian forest riparian trees, as ecosystem engineers in recognition of the ability of these organisms to alter the surrounding environment. People are unique in the extent to and intensity with which we alter rivers. In many cases, river engineerings has unintended consequences, and effectively mitigating these consequences requires that we understand rivers in the broadest sense, as shapers and integrators of landscape.Geomorphology Geomorphologist Luna Leopold once described rivers as the gutters down which flow the ruins of continents (Leopold et al., 1964). His father, Aldo Leopold, described the functioning of an ecosystem as a round river to emphasize the cycling of nutrients and energy. Rivers in the Landscape 2nd John Wiley & Sons 2020 9781119535416 https://books.google.com/books?id=937CDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 1 (512 pages; 1st edition 2014) About the time I was trying to decide what kind of Geomorphology geomorphologist I wanted to be, I took a hike along the canyon of the Hassayampa River in central Arizona. I remember looking at the Shoal sandbars along the basalt canyon and feeling a quiet pride—and wonder—that I now understood how those sandbars got there and why they were located exactly there. I've always had trouble turning back rather than following just one more bend of the river to see what's ahead. Contemplating those sandbars, I realized I could spend my life following the next bend and the one after that—and the choice was made.I like natural environments. Cities and rural areas, not so much. I also like to read history and biography and tend to make note of relevant river tidbits I come across, such as descriptions of big logjams or abundant beaver dams that travelers described a century ago on rivers that no longer have those features. And I enjoy traveling and seeing new natural places. Following the Bend: How to Read a River and Understand Its Nature Princeton University Press 2025 9780691272481 https://books.google.com/books?id=oF1OEQAAQBAJ&pg=PA3 3–4 (304 pages) Quotes about Ellen E. Wohl Saving the Dammed is Ellen Wohl's homage to beavers, describing their unique engineering prowess, the wider environmental impacts they exert, and why we should care. Throughout the book, Wohl binds a lifetime of professional riverine experience, observations of her local beaver population, gray literature, and primary literature to convey the benefits of beavers and convince the reader why we need more beaver-modified ecosystems. Alan Law, 11 December 2020 review of Saving the Dammed: Why We Need Beaver-Modified Ecosystems by Ellen E. Wohl Mountain Research and Development 40 2 M3-M4 https://doi.org/10.1659/mrd.mm253.1 External links Category:1962 births Category:Living people Category:Environmentalists from the United States Category:Geologists from the United States Category:Science authors from the United States Category:Women academics from the United States Category:Women born in the 1960s Category:Women scientists from the United States