Bill Dietrich on Meander Mechanics, Hillslopes, and Where Rivers Begin

Over his career Dr. Bill Dietrich has had an outsized influence on both the discipline of geomorphology and the community that surrounds the discipline.  He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Dietrich is one of the most influential geomorphologists of the last several decades, known for developing process-based theories of landscape evolution and geomorphic transport laws for soil production, hillslope transport, and river incision. His work spans hillslopes, rivers, debris flows, sediment transport, and the coupling of ecological and geomorphic processes. Over his career he has helped establish many of the conceptual and quantitative frameworks that modern geomorphology relies on today, and his publications are close to 70,000 citations (which is a truely astounding number). He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2003 and has received several of the field’s highest honors, including the Robert E. Horton Medal of the American Geophysical Union for outstanding contributions to hydrology and the G.K. Gilbert Award for major advances in Earth-surface processes, which is apt because I see his work embodying Gilbert's tradition.  Bill also began "the Gilbert Club" an AGU adjacent gathering that has become a center of mas for the geomorphic community, which we talk about in the episode.

As I try to grow in my ability to predict river behavior and manage our interactions with our nation's waterways, I find I'm learning - approximately in equal parts - from the worlds of engineering and geomorphology, so I am trying to deliver heuristics and insights from those overlapping - but separate - thought worlds.  In this episode we go deep into the science of upland river processes, including insights that have helped me along the way.

We will have some bonus content on the YouTube channel...but you won't want to miss this: https://youtu.be/fixiMpBB3LE
(an easter egg priview for the people who read episode notes)

This series was funded by the Regional Sediment Management (RSM) program.

Mike Loretto edited the first three seasons and created the theme music.
Tessa Hall is editing most of Season 4.

Stanford Gibson (HEC Sediment Specialist) hosts.

Video shorts and other bonus content are available at the podcast website:
https://www.hec.usace.army.mil/confluence/rasdocs/rastraining/latest/the-rsm-river-mechanics-podcast

...but most of the supplementary videos are available on the HEC Sediment YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/stanfordgibson

If you have guest recommendations or feedback you can reach out to me on LinkedIn or ResearchGate or fill out this recommendation and feedback form: https://forms.gle/wWJLVSEYe7S8Cd248