Fraser River sockeye salmon: data synthesis and cumulative impacts

Urbanization upstream of Hope since the 1980s has been highly variable. The study is usingmunicipal boundaries, urban road density, domestic water licences, census boundaries andhuman population trends as indicators.Agriculture: Crop production and grazing can increase sedimentation, destabilize banks, reduceflows, increase temperature and impair water quality. The Fraser supports 53% of the province’sfarmland, but this data is still being analyzed.Water use: Excessive human water use can result in altered or reduced flows and hightemperatures. The study is intersecting the locations of water licences and allocations with CUhabitat types.The study results will be presented in a “CU Dashboard” format that visually graphs a portfolioof the relative intensity of stressors in each of the above categories for each CU.Interpretations: Initial qualitative and quantitative assessments have been completed for a fewof these freshwater stressors, but the integrative analysis across the full set of quantitativeindicators still has to be done. Next steps include completing the portfolio of relative stressorassessments across CUs and seeing if a relationship emerges between the relative intensity ofstressors and recent population patterns.No recommendations or data gaps have yet been identified. In most cases, we lack the full timeseries. Data collection is not repeated on a very frequent basis, so that will be a keyrecommendation: more frequent updates of changes in watershed stressors over time.DiscussionWieckowski: Dorner’s earlier presentation showed Fraser sockeye stocks in some geographicareas doing well concurrently and then switching. Is there any idea yet why this may behappening?Porter: Not yet. The PSC report did not find any relationship but we have more detailed data onlocalized impacts.Peterman: How will the study look for correlations?Porter: We are still working out how to distinguish the scope of this project from the cumulativeeffects project.Peterman: Has any thought been given as to how you might scale some of these indicators toaddress what levels might represent a stress?Q/A: Groundwater removal is not part of the assessment, nor does it directly quantify flowchanges over time.Reynolds: There are bits and pieces of flow information available.Porter: We looked at water restrictions for an indication of some places that might haveproblems.Rosenau: There are good data sets available via the Water Survey of Canada, including data setsfor the whole year or broken down by the time of year, going back to 1913. They havesampling stations all over the Fraser watershed and have integrated everything, includingextractions, in one package. Elevation and discharge levels are available all over the Fraser,48