Our new Biological Assessment is out - Klamath Basin Crisis

Klamath Project Operations Biological Assessment
Coho Salmon: Effects of the Proposed Action on Coho Salmon
throughout the Klamath River Basin. Those Technical Memorandums as well as
the Cramer Fish Sciences’ responses to comments received are posted on a
website dedicated to this modeling effort 38 . A report describing the completed
model and its findings is attached to this BA, as Appendix 3-B.
Components of the Analytical Framework
Three quantitative models were combined to produce an analytical framework for
evaluating the Proposed Action’s effects on the four VSP criteria:
(1) A spatially and temporally explicit life-cycle model used to evaluate the
relative change in abundance, productivity, spatial structure and diversity
of Klamath River coho salmon based on different temperature and flow
conditions
(2) An operations model used to provide the flow release schedule from IGD
according to a range of precipitation inflow scenarios for the Upper
Klamath River Basin
(3) A hydrodynamic temperature model (Watercourse Engineering 2007) was
used to simulate temperature and flow conditions from IGD to the estuary
for a wide range of flow releases
Simulated temperature and flow data provided the inputs for the coho salmon lifecycle
model. The combined information from these three models allows
Reclamation to evaluate the effects of their proposed action on the four VSP
criteria for Klamath River coho salmon (Figure 3-25).
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