Carl E. Renshaw
Professor
Appointments
Frank J. Reagan 1909 Professorship
Professor of Earth Sciences
Adjunct Professor, Thayer School of Engineering
Area of Expertise
hydrogeology,
geomechanics,
structural geology,
geomorphology
Biography
I am a hydrologist with research interests in the response of rivers and streams to disturbance -- whether the disturbance is natural (e.g. large floods and climate change) or anthropogenic (e.g. dams, dam removal, and industrial and agricultural legacy contaminants). Much of my work is collaborative with Frank Magilligan. Our work is motivated by the fact that extreme precipitation events are now 67% more common in New England than they were just 30 years ago. And New England has one of the highest densities of dams in the U.S. and is one of the leading regions of dam removal in the U.S. – with the number of dams removed year growing exponentially. Despite the growing number of extreme floods and dam removals, the science of river restoration lags behind its application.
We use a wide variety of techniques in our work, including sediment age dating and tracing using both naturally occurring and anthropogenic radionuclide tracers, detailed in-channel topographic, sediment, and habitat surveys, HEC-RAS and RiverFLO-2D flow modeling, remote sensing and GIS analyses, and high-resolution chemical analyses of soil and sediment.
My research interests also include several other projects, most notably in experimental geomechanics with Professor Erland Schulson in Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering (where I am an adjunct professor). Together we are using ice to better understand the controls on the strength and break-up of ice.
Education
B.A. Carleton College
M.A. Johns Hopkins University
Ph.D. Stanford University
Publications
Renshaw, C.E., Murdza, A., Schulson, E.M. (2021), Experimental verification of the isotropic onset of percolation in 3D crack networks in polycrystalline materials with implications for the applicability of percolation theory to crustal rocks, Journal of Geophysical Research – Solid Earth, 126(12): e2021JB023092, doi: 10.1029/2021JB023092.
Fields, J., Renshaw, C.E., Magilligan, F.J., Dethier, E.N., Rossi, R. (2021), A mechanistic understanding of channel evolution following dam removal, Geomorphology, 395, 107971, doi: 10.1016/j.geomorph.2021.107971.
Landis, J.D., Feng, X., Kaste, J.M., Renshaw, C.E. (2021), Aerosol Populations, Processes, and Ages in Bulk Deposition: Insights From a 9-Year Study of Be-7, Pb-210, Sulfate, and Major/Trace Elements, Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres, 126(21): e2021JD035612, doi: 10.1029/2021JD035612.
Murdza, A., Polojarvi, A., Schulson, E.M., Renshaw, C.E. (2021), The flexural strength of bonded ice, Cryosphere, 15(6):2957-2967, doi: 10.5194/tc-15-2957-2021.
Khimasia, A., C.E. Renshaw, R.E. Price, T.Pichler (2021), Hydrothermal flux and porewater geochemistry in Paleochori Bay, Milos, Greece, Chemical Geology, 571:120188, doi: 10.1016/j.chemgeo.2021.120188.
Murdza, A., Schulson, E.M., Renshaw, C.E. (2021), Behavior of saline ice under cyclic flexural loading, Cryosphere, 15(5):2415-2428, doi: 10.5194/tc-15-2415-2021.
Magilligan, F.J., M.O. Roberts, M. Mackenzie, C.E. Renshaw (2021), The impact of run-of-river dams on sediment longitudinal connectivity and downstream channel equilibrium, Geomorphology, 376, 1-11, 107568, doi: 10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107568.
Murdza, A.,A. Marchenko, E. M. Schulson, and C. E. Renshaw (2021), Cyclic strengthening of lake ice, Journal of Glaciology, 67(261), 182-185, doi: 10.1017/jog.2020.86.
Dethier, E. N., Sartain, S.L, Renshaw, C.E., and Magilligan, F. J. (2020), Spatially coherent regional changes in seasonal extreme streamflow events in the United States and Canada since 1950. Science Advances, 6(49), eaba5939, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aba5939.
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