Allred Restoration has been involved in many instream flow studies, including major studies on the Truckee River, the Provo River, Diamond Fork Creek, and Hobble Creek. We developed an innovative approach that uses gage data from unaltered streams, in similar geographic settings, to define an “envelope” of the expected range of natural baseflows.
The advantage of this method is that it allows description of baseflows for the range of expected snowpack conditions, with different prescriptions for wetter and drier watershed conditions. Gage records from watersheds of all sizes can be normalized by applying a dimensionless approach which allows large and small basins to be compared and assessed simultaneously. Since this method was developed, it has been helpful for determining baseflows in many rivers and streams in the Western United States.
An instream flow study was conducted for the Diamond Fork Wetlands Restoration project, and can be accessed here.
The final report for the Lower Provo River Ecosystem Flow Recommendations is another example of Allred Restoration’s work on instream flow studies.