The University of Arizona Press
Date: Thursday, April 18, 2024
Time: 12 p.m. – 1 p.m., AZT
Where: Register for Zoom event here
Robert H. Webb will speak about his book, Requiem for the Santa Cruz: An Environmental History of an Arizona River, as part of the 2024 Arizona Author Series Zoom event presented by the State of Arizona Research Library. Webb is a research hydrologist and geoscientist, who retired from the National Research Program, Water Mission Area, US Geological Survey and is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona. The event is free and open to the public. The presentation will be held virtually on Zoom, and will be recorded and made available on the State of Arizona Research Library YouTube channel.
About the book:
Authored by an esteemed group of scientists, Requiem for the Santa Cruz thoroughly documents this river—the premier example of historic arroyo cutting during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when large flood flows cut down through unconsolidated valley fill to form deep channels in the major valleys of the American Southwest. Each chapter provides a unique opportunity to chronicle the arroyo legacy, evaluate its causes, and consider its aftermath. Using more than a collective century of observations and collections, the authors reconstruct the circumstances of the river’s entrenchment and the groundwater mining that ultimately killed the marshlands, a veritable mesquite forest, and a birdwatcher’s paradise.
