FULL-DAY
FIELD TRIP ($85)
SUNDAY, APRIL
29, 2001
7 am - 9
pm
GRAND
CANYON via SEDONA
Pickup at the
hotels by the bus:
6:30 AM Holiday
Inn
6:45 AM Twin
Palms Hotel
7:00 AM Marriott
Courtyard
Arrival back
at Tempe: approximately 9 PM
Due to numerous
requests, we have arranged a field trip to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon
via the spectacular red rock country of Sedona. The trip is definitely
a full day, but you will see some of the most scenic areas of Arizona.
The route to the South Rim will pass through five biomes: Arizona Upland
Sonora Desertscrub, Interior Chaparral, Juniper-Pinyon Woodland, Petran
Montane Conifer Forest, and Great Basin Desertscrub. You will stop
in Sedona for a coffee break and continue to the South Rim via Oak Creek
Canyon and Flagstaff. You will spend several hours at the South Rim
before heading back to Phoenix. A professional guide will provide
narration during the trip.
HALF-DAY
FIELD TRIPS ($35)
FRIDAY, APRIL
27, 2001
1:00 pm
- 5:00 pm
From the Town to the Country:
Conducting Stream Biogeochemistry along an Urban - Rural Gradient
Field trip
leaders:
Dr. Nancy Grimm,
John
Roach, and Jennifer Edmonds(Stream Laboratory, Department
of Biology, Arizona State University)
Stream biogeochemistry is heavily
influenced by the physical structure of the stream channel. The urbanization
of the Phoenix metropolitan area has resulted in extensive modification
of exiting stream channels, the construction of artificial lakes and streams,
and the creation of an extensive network of canals. However, many
of the streams in the surrounding desert remain comparatively pristine.
We will visit a variety of streams along this urban-rural gradient that
differ in their hydrology and geomorphology. We hope that they will
spark a discussion of natural and human landforms and their influence on
the flow of water and the cycling of nutrients in fluvial systems.
Desert Preservation in the City
of Phoenix
Field trip
leaders: Jim Burke (City of Phoenix Parks, Recreation
and Library Department), Joseph Ewan ( Assistant Professor
at Arizona State University’s School of Planning and Landscape Architecture),
Bruce
Swanson (City of Phoenix Parks, Recreation and Library Department)
The tour will focus on open space
preservation efforts within the city of Phoenix. The tour will begin
with visits to historically significant sites that have preserved Sonoran
desert lands within what has become the six largest city in the nation.
The tour will visit South Mountain Park, the largest municipal park in
the country, and the North Mountains, home to the most popular trail in
the country with more than 2 million visitors a year.
The tour will also visit the most
recent efforts to continue this tradition of preservation, the Sonoran
Preserve. The master plan for this 21,500 acre project represents
a departure from previous planning efforts. The most significant difference
being the Sonoran Preserve Master Plan attempts to develop a system that
would function biologically while providing the public a needed recreational
resource. The Sonoran Preserve Master Plan was recognized by the
American Society of Landscape Architects with a Presidential Award for
Analysis and Planning. Jim and Joe, co-authors of the master plan
will discuss the planning process, which includes on-going partnership
with university planners, landscape architects and ecologists.
Urbanization, Landscape, and
Geologic History along the Salt River, Eastern Maricopa County
Field trip
leader: Dr. Rámon Arrowsmith (Department
of Geology, Arizona State University)
This field trip will follow
the Salt River from Arizona State University east into the Superstition
Mountains and include several stops to discuss the changing uses of the
river landscape from Hohokam, Hispanic, and Anglo irrigation to landfills
and urban lakes as well as the classic landforms along the river including
terraces, pediments, and channels. The last few million years of
development of the Salt River is well recorded in the positions of theses
landforms, their relative ages, and related channel and overbank deposits.
Early Farming Experiments in
the Phoenix Metropolitan Area
Field trip
leader: Dr. Katherine Crewe (School of Planning
and Landscape Architecture, Arizona State University)
Farmlands around Phoenix have witnessed
critical developments over the centuries, from the early Hohokam canals
to the agricultural boom in citrus and cotton after the completion of the
Roosevelt Dam in 1911. The area has provided a setting for a number
of significant farming settlements, as well as important farm research.
In this tour, we will visit some remains of these early farming communities,
focusing on the towns of Chandler, Laveen, and Litchfield in the attempt
to reconstruct a vanishing way of life.
Tres Rios
Constructed Wetlands Demonstration Project
Field trip
leader: John David
(Landscape Ecology and Modeling
Laboratory, Arizona State University-West Campus)
Beginning in the early 1900's with
the damming of the Salt River, the once verdant perennial river gradually
became a dry riverbed whose primary inflow was from agricultural and storm
runoff, and the discharge from the metropolitan Phoenix waste water treatment
plant.
By the early 1990's a number of the
valley cities and various government agencies looked for solutions to bring
the discharged water to meet or exceed the new water quality standards
then being proposed. One alternative approach to the traditional
engineering solutions was the use of constructed wetlands to polish the
initially treated water.
The Tres Rios constructed wetlands
project was designed to test and demonstrate the effectiveness of constructing
wetlands to further polish the treated effluent coming from the 91'st Avenue
Waste Water Treatment Plant. When completed, the full-scale 800-acre
wetland project will treat the entire 150 million gallons of water a day
of effluent released from the plant. The project site is situated
near the confluence of the Salt, Gila, and Agua Fria Rivers. It supports
approximately 12 acres of wetlands, whose continuous outflow further provides
necessary resources to maintain an additional mile of riparian habitat
along the Salt River.
On this tour we will visit the Cobble
site which compared lined and unlined basins to determine the amount of
water loss through infiltration, and the Hayfield site which compared differing
deep-zone configurations to determine
which configuration (many and narrow, or few and wide) is optimum from
the standpoint of both water quality improvement and increased habitat
value. In addition, we will walk a riparian trail which is supported
by the projects outflow, andview a 10 minute information video covering
the highlights of the project. More information can be obtained directly
from the Tres Rios Project web site here.
