Little River Research & Design — guest post

Note: This is a guest post from Steve Gough, the founder of Little Research & Design.

–

Little River Research & Design is a small “semi-profit” organization I founded in 1991.  For 16 years it was mostly just me doing consulting in applied river geomorphology. In 2007, I hired three people so we could shift more from consulting to river conservation science and education. We produce high quality educational video, some compiled on this DVD, and also movable bed river models (MBMs), including the big (4 m x 1.5 m) Emriver Em4 and the smaller, portable Em2. There are now fifty Em2s in use, about half of them are at university geoscience departments. We’re now working with museums, state and federal agencies, and other universities to develop MBM hardware (including open source designs) and curriculum. We’ve developed a unique color coded by size plastic modeling media that I think will revolutionize MBM use for research and teaching; short video here (.mov file) and are also working on cool new technologies like close range photogrammetry for use with MBMs.

Little River Research & Design EM4 model (courtesy of Steve Gough)

As part of that work we’re collaborating with ten institutions, led by Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, on an NSF CCLI proposal due soon.

If you’ve ever used a stream table for research or education, you can help us by completing this survey. You can follow our work and developments in applied fluvial geomorphology on my blog Riparian Rap.

The last two years have been a struggle—almost all our clients are tax-supported, and the economic downturn hit us hard. Thanks to Brian for use of his excellent blog, and also to you for reading and forwarding this post to colleagues who might be interested in our work.

Little River Research & Design EM2 model (courtesy of Steve Gough)

Check out more photos of the models and of field work on LRRD’s Flickr page.