University of Georgia logo.

RBC evaluates North Georgia’s Holly Creek

Seth Wenger, Phillip Bumpers, and Eric Walther examining a fish in Holly Creek.

For several years, the River Basin Center has monitored Holly Creek near Chatsworth, a tributary to the Conasauga River, to evaluate the progress of long-term rehabilitation and restoration projects.

Water Resilience Shines at Biennial Georgia Water Resources Conference

ATHENS, GA – Interdisciplinary knowledge is a critical aspect of solving big environmental problems. That’s why, for the 2025 Georgia Water Resources Conference, we brought everyone together. We do mean everyone: ecologists, hydrologists, engineers, geoscientists, lawyers, anthropologists, consultants and certified fish enthusiasts.

2025 Spencer Research Grants Awarded to Six

2025 John Spencer research grants recipients Emily Chalfin, Kuhelika Ghosh, Monika Giri, Mackenzi Hallmark, Alyssa Quan.

Athens, Ga. – Six graduate student affiliates of the River Basin Center have been named recipients of John Spencer research grants for 2025. This year’s awards will provide a total of $10,000 to support a range of projects that contribute to water sustainability and resilience across the southeastern United States and beyond.

RBC Affiliates Team up to Rescue Species From Extinction

Laurel Dace

This summer, researchers from the River Basin Center assisted the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute (TNACI) in rescuing one of the last populations of the Laurel Dace, an endangered minnow species, from a drying stream in Tennessee. The rescue, conducted in collaboration with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, has since attracted media attention from multiple Chattanooga news outlets as well as Pattrn, an affiliate of The Weather Channel that covers climate change and conservation.

The Ever-Shifting River

Anuja Mital looking through binoculars on a bluff above a river in India.

John Spencer Grant recipient and National Geographic Explorer Anuja Mital works to understand how turtles move across the dynamic Brahmaputra River valley.

Study: People are altering decomposition rates in waterways

A great blue heron flies above a river.

A new study co-authored by RBC Associate Director Krista Capps and Affiliate J.P. Schmidt gathered data from 550 rivers across 40 countries and found that human intervention increases the rate of decomposition of plant matter, depriving freshwater life of food at a faster rate than usual, as well as potentially exacerbating climate change.