Watershed land uses, including urbanization, influence erosion and depositional processes in a tributary to the Navarro basin in north coastal California.  The Robinson Creek subwatershed is deeply incised into easily erodible Quaternary alluvial river and terrace valley-fill deposits in the vicinity of the urbanizing town of Boonville.  Remnant riparian forest vegetation exists at the top of the terrace.  Detailed field surveys of a 1.3 km channel reach document spatial variation in slope and suggest that a series of knickzones accommodate elevation differences between areas upstream and downstream of the urbanizing area.  Average reach slope is ~0.012 whereas average terrace slope is ~0.009.  This difference accounts for lower bank heights (~4.6 m) at the upstream end of the reach than at the downstream end (~8.1 m).  The apparent recent increase in channel slope, an indicator of channel adjustment, leads to an increase in shear stress available to erode and transport bed and bank sediment in the relatively narrow channel.  Temporal variation in bed elevation is related to episodic floods in this actively adjusting channel; up to 0.2 m of incision occurred during floods in water year 2006.  Bank erosion is considerable and erosion-control structures are a typical response to land loss, threats to residential structures and domestic water wells, and undercutting of bridge piers and individual streamside trees.  Existing bank erosion control structures limit geomorphic processes and aquatic and riparian restoration options over the long term.  Moreover, progressive urban development including building structures near the top-of-bank further limit alternatives for restoration of geomorphic processes and associated aquatic and riparian habitat that require increases in channel width as a response to continuing channel incision.