Several millennia’s worth of human decisions are written into the physical contours of the Red Butte Research Natural Area. To explore and investigate that rich human legacy, the University of Utah Archaeological Center has teamed with the United States Forest Service and the Utah State Historic Preservation Office to conduct a multi-year survey and excavation of the canyon, including...

Red Butte Creek runs from Red Butte Canyon, through the University of Utah and residential neighborhoods, and into the Jordan River. The creek offers potentially important wildlife habitat along a prominent wildland-urban interface. However, the creek is a patchwork of unfenced and fenced land and, in certain areas, can be difficult to access. A recently developed planning commission has...

Red Butte Creek runs adjacent to the University and is a natural asset to those who take advantage of it. However it is invisible to many people within our communities. In response to this, our group raised awareness of RBC by doing three interrelated projects that were motivated by the junction of three different concepts: art, action and the...

Birds are an excellent indicator of environmental health and can serve as effective flagship species to garner interest in conservation. Since 2012, we have operated a twice-weekly bird banding station in Red Butte Canyon. Birds are captured in mist nets and released with small numbered leg bands following a suite of morphological measurements. This information allows us to monitor...

The shallow groundwater system in the Salt Lake Valley is complex, comprising partially of water perched on fine-grained Lake Bonneville deposits located above the principal aquifer. This study aims to characterize the shallow groundwater system, including flowpaths and sources of recharge, using environmental tracers and noble gas thermometry to age-date groundwater from seeps, springs, and shallow wells in the...

The course Sustainable Streams and Riparian Zones was offered at the University of Utah for the first time in fall 2018. Students enrolled in the class considered ecological, economic, and social factors with regards to conservation and management of stream and riparian ecosystems. The wildland-urban gradient of Red Butte Creek served as a focal site for case studies, field...

Birds are an integral part of ecosystems. Therefore, the study of different bird species and their populations is critical to understanding ecosystem health and maintaining important ecosystem services. Bird banding is an effective method for this avian research. Empidonax flycatchers are considered some of the most difficult bird species to identify in North America due to interspecific morphological similarities....

This research explored outdoor recreationists’ indicators and thresholds for outdoor recreation activities and crowding conditions in the Living Room area, within the Foothill Trail system, along the wildland-urban interface. This area has seen high outdoor recreation use leading to trail development to meet the needs of a growing population of hikers, runners, dog-walkers, and mountain bikers (Itis, 2017). The...

Over the past few years, several social science initiatives have attempted to build an understanding of humans’ usage and perceptions of the Red Butte Creek corridor.  This knowledge is important as we plan for a future that not only improves the ecological well-being of the creek but enhances the current stock of public and recreational spaces.  Here, we compare...

We used 3-dimensional remote sensing data (lidar) and field observations to map and quantify the structure of the riparian forest along Red Butte Creek. We then evaluated whether changes in land use & hydrology along the stream were associated with patterns in the mapped vegetation structure. Our results show that land use is strongly associated with the structure of...

Bioswales are commonly implemented with the purpose of reducing storm flow and pollutant loads to streams during storm events. Despite the widespread implementation of bioswales, the factors controlling pollutant sequestration by bioswales are not well understood. The University of Utah’s Green Infrastructure Research Facility (GIRF) aims to better understand this process. Nine plots at GIRF were planted with triplicate...

Red Butte Creek’s transition from pristine canyon to urban jungle within a three-mile stretch provides a unique setting for studying the effect of urbanization on rivers. To better understand this effect of urbanization on water quality, water samples were collected from storm drain outflows and in-stream locations in Research Park at the University of Utah during precipitation events. Results...

The goals and methods of Environmental Education (EE) are limited and ineffective. This project proposes three changes to EE: a shift from anthro- to ecocentric lessons, a curriculum that integrates the sciences and the humanities and the use of plants as tools for fostering empathetic attitudes toward non-animal species and forming place attachments with landscapes through familiarity with non-mobile...

The geologic history of the Wasatch defines the framework for the evolution of Red Butte Creek, and active geologic processes continue to shape the morphology of the creek system. Multiple UU faculty and students have conducted research to better understand the geologic history and processes. The underlying geology of Red Butte Creek includes Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary rocks that...

Tetrachloroethylene (PCE) groundwater contamination was first detected in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Mount Olivet Irrigation Well in the early 1990s during routine sampling.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Utah Department of Environmental Quality (UDEQ) conducted several assessments but did not determine the source of the contamination.  As of 2013, the area surrounding this well is...

Green infrastructure is an approach to planning and design that incorporates living ecological systems at site to regional scales to provide benefits and services to humans and enhance the functioning of the built environment. Along Red Butte Creek, interdisciplinary teams of researchers are exploring ways to restore more natural flows, improve water quality, and reduce irrigation needs using green...

Project by: Rose Smith, Noortje Grijseels, Diane Pataki In collaboration with Red Butte Gardens, and Research Park, we are measuring in situ evapotranspiration (ET) of turfgrass and groundcover alternatives. We measured diurnal in situ ET on a well-watered Kentucky Bluegrass and five groundcover alternatives species. ET measurements involve briefly placing a portable clear PVC chamber (0.28 x 0.28 x...

The NEON project is a large-scale observational initiative funded by the National Science Foundation.  It uses ground-based and remote sensing protocols to collect a wide variety of environmental and biological data.  The project delivers open-access data for use by professionals and the public.  In Red Butte Canyon NEON focuses on aquatic observation and instrumentation protocols.  Monitoring of key organisms,...

Surveys of the bacterial communities of Red Butte Creek (RBC) were conducted at multiple locations along a 12 km stretch of the stream from spring 2015 to spring 2016. The study was one small component of the iUTAH all-hands sampling campaign. Sampling locations were chosen to capture a range of sites in both the relatively untouched canyon and the...

Constructed in 2013, the Gradients Along Mountain to Urban Transitions (GAMUT) network has collected over 5,000,000 unique water quality and climate data points from the Red Butte Creek Watershed.  Here we present a summary of the network and highlight a few interesting results from the last five years of data collected during the NSF funded iUTAH project. With the...