Fraser River sockeye salmon: data synthesis and cumulative impacts

utilized to clarify the full range of factors, and their interactions, that impact Frasersockeye 16 .SW4 Deliverables4.1 The Contractor will organize a Project Inception meeting to be held within 2weeks of the contract date in the Commission office.4.2 The main deliverables of the contract include the facilitation of 2 workshops andthe preparation of 2 workshop reports. The first workshop (Nov. 30 – Dec. 1,2010) will involve Contractors and the Scientific Advisory Panel to addresscumulative effects and their relationship with sockeye declines. The secondworkshop (Feb. 23-24, 2011) will involve the public, Participants, as well as theother Cohen Commission Contractors.4.3 The Workshop Facilitators will make themselves available to CommissionCounsel and legal staff as required.Additional Methodological Details:Cumulative Impact Analysis. The Contractor will take a life history approach to cumulative impactanalysis, examining the suite of stressors potentially affecting each life history stage, and how thosestressors have changed over the period of interest (i.e., early 1990’s until the present). The Contractor willuse the results of each investigator’s work to illustrate the magnitude of each stressor over space andtime, and its potential for delayed effects on subsequent life history stages (e.g., acquisition of a diseaseat one life history stage may not cause mortality until other stressors such as high temperatures affect alater life history stage). The intent is to illustrate these potential cumulative impacts through a series ofintegrative frameworks, such as:a) a life history diagram showing the impacts of different stressors, with arrows of different thicknessindicating the strengths of different pathways (including both direct and delayed effects);b) time series graphs showing changes in a series of indicators for different stressors, placed on amap of the sockeye’s life history, showing all indicators on a consistent relative scale (e.g., scaledto 1 based on the maximum value over the time series);c) similar time series graphs of the changes in productivity indicators for different sockeye salmonstocks; andd) analyses of the evidence for and against different hypotheses, building on the June 15-17 PSCworkshop.Computer Model. Each of the investigators gathering information on different stressors will assembleindicators of those stressors, organized into a spreadsheet with a consistent format (i.e., stressor by yearby stock), specifically the 19 Fraser River sockeye stocks for which productivity indicators have beenassembled by the Pacific Salmon Commission. For some stressors (e.g., impacts on freshwater spawningand rearing habitat), these indicators may be stock-specific. For other stressors (e.g., fish farms,oceanographic conditions, mammalian predators) many stocks will need to be grouped, as theindependent effects on different stressors are unknown. The ability to explain the patterns of change inboth Fraser sockeye stocks and other stocks of interest outside the Fraser (valuable to create contrast)16 Several of the Commission Participants requested that additional details concerning methodology forcumulative impact analysis be provided. This information is shown after the section SW4 Deliverables.118