February Chapter Meeting with Nick Nelson, Fluvial Geomorphologist at Inter-Fluve

Connections

Life is about connections – we thrive on our human connections, our connections to our pets, our connections to our favorite rivers or natural spaces. Connections are critical between species and across vast landscapes – people around the world await for the migration of fish to give life to human communities and whole ecosystems. For thousands of years, humans have used fish for sustenance, to fertilize crops, to signal the changing seasons. The rivers that these fish move along serve many similar purposes. Rivers connect – they connect human communities, they provide pathways for thousands of animal species, they transport soil and nutrients to replenish and rebuild wetlands and floodplains and salt marshes. This longitudinal, lateral, and vertical connectivity of rivers is vital to the healthy functionality of our ecosystems here in New England and around the world. For the last several hundred years, our rivers in New England have been disconnected by tens of thousands of dams, but the period of dam building is over and dam removal is well underway. We will discuss some really exciting dam removal initiatives in the region that build on lessons learned from the past as we look towards continued opportunities in the future.

Nick Nelson is a fluvial geomorphologist and northeast regional director for Inter-Fluve, a river and wetland restoration firm working to heal aquatic ecosystems through applied science and engineering. He began with Inter-Fluve in 2007 and opened up our east coast operations in Cambridge in 2009. Nick has worked on all phases of dozens of dam removal and fish passage projects regionally and across the country. He has led workshops and discussions at conferences nationally as well as in Europe. He currently teaches a water and ecology class at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and has lectured at multiple other institutions.