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A notable characteristic of terrain in non‐urbanized deglaciated areas of northeastern North America is the microtopography created by processes related to surficial geology, deglaciation and mechanical disturbances to surface materials from excavating events, most of which are caused by tree throw in the modern landscape. The features are often on the scale of 1–4 m across and decimetres to a metre in depth, appearing as ‘puddles’ during intense or high‐magnitude precipitation events. Generalized storage capacity values have been summarized in textbooks for varied landscape conditions, but surprisingly little information is available about how microtopography and related surface water storage varies in dominant physiographic settings in deglaciated landscapes defined by slope, surficial geology and land cover conditions. The increasing availability of elevation data at a horizontal resolution of 2 m or higher has made it possible to remotely evaluate differences in terrain elevation and quantify upland surface water storage capacity from relatively small topographic depressions. Here, we describe and quantify these topographic features in several coastal and inland watersheds in the state of Maine (USA) with measurements of depression volume calculated from digital elevation models (DEMs) using a pit filling approach. Results show that microtopographic storage capacity varies with slope and land cover conditions in deglaciated terrain of northeastern North America. Basin‐average surface water depression storage capacity estimates range from ~4 mm to as low as 0.2 mm. Human interventions such as clearing land for agriculture are associated with lower microtopographic surface water storage capacity than forested landscapes in the region.

Aging infrastructure and growing interests in river restoration have led to a substantial rise in dam removals in the United States. However, the decision to remove a dam involves many complex trade-offs. The benefits of dam removal for hazard reduction and ecological restoration are potentially offset by the loss of hydroelectricity production, water supply, and other important services. We use a multiobjective approach to examine a wide array of trade-offs and synergies involved with strategic dam removal at three spatial scales in New England. We find that increasing the scale of decision-making improves the efficiency of trade-offs among ecosystem services, river safety, and economic costs resulting from dam removal, but this may lead to heterogeneous and less equitable local-scale outcomes. Our model may help facilitate multilateral funding, policy, and stakeholder agreements by analyzing the trade-offs of coordinated dam decisions, including net benefit alternatives to dam removal, at scales that satisfy these agreements.