Gordon Grant

Increasing and often competing demands for water for agriculture, urban uses, and aquatic habitat requirements highlight the importance of understanding waterflow regimes and their sensitivity to climate and land use change. Research hydrologist Gordon Grant’s work on these interactions is of great interest to land managers and communities across the West and beyond.

Grant began working for the Forest Service at the Pacific Northwest Research Station in 1985, and received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in geomorphology in 1986. His contributions to river science are abundant and diverse, including landmark studies on the interactions among hydraulics, sediment transport, and channel morphology; sediment impacts on salmon; effects of clearcutting on river systems; dynamics and effects of large woody debris in rivers; river restoration; the importance of groundwater resources and how they are driven by rain and snowmelt; and recent work on volcanism and watershed flow structure in the Cascades.

Grant’s work on the hydro-ecological impacts of dams, such as those on the Deschutes, Sandy, and Clackamas Rivers, has provided a comprehensive understanding of the hydrogeomorphic and geologic effects of dam removal, which is becoming a rising concern and opportunity for river management in the United States.

Grant has always dedicated himself to outreach and has been consulted by state legislatures, the Chief of the Forest Service, and members of Congress. He also pursues a broad range of communication activities and public science education and is deeply committed to serving as a mentor to junior faculty and graduate students. He now has over 130 published papers, many of which have become required reading in university classes on fluvial geomorphology.