• Barrier/Filter

  • The walls act as a barrier or filter to the natural wildlife of the river

    • Water and food access and migratory problems

• Erosion

  • River Depth

    • Walls prevent a lot of erosion of river bank, but sand is deposited in middle of river instead of on river banks. Energy if water in the river is not equal; it rises and falls. Solids are deposited as they travel downstream. When the banks are blocked off, the solids are deposited when the energy is not enough to hold the solids in suspension.

Michigan's biggest river is Grand Rapids' most ignored. While the Grand River used to be important for indigenous travel and trade and European logging, currently the river is used for recreational activities such as fishing and boating. Unfortunately, the exploitation of the river has widened and destroyed the rapids that our city is names for. In "Braiding Sweetgrass," a book by Robin Wall Kimmerer, the entire premise is how people interact with and respect Mother Nature and her creations. Learning to respect and properly interact with the Grand River encourages me to compare the Grand River that I observe every day with the sections of the Grand River that are walled off in downtown Grand Rapids.

While observing the river over the course of this semester in two separate locations, I have determined that there is much work to be done. My goal consists of determining the changes that the walls of the Grand River have made on the ecosystem throughout history through personal observation and scholarly literature. By understanding what the walls are doing to the local ecosystem, hopefully a solution to restoring the rapids will become more apparent.