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Sawtooth National Forest Watershed Vulnerability Assessment, Intermountain Region (R4) APPLICATION The results from this analysis can be applied to the following four main areas. Monitoring – Continue to expand our summer stream temperature monitoring and establish year-round monitoring sites in select subwatersheds that are projected to have temperature increases by 2040 and in higher elevation subwatersheds that are projected to have minimum temperature increase. Continue to monitor management activities that reduce stream shading and baseflows. Consider establishing stream channel/riparian monitoring sites in subwatersheds projected to see winter peak flow increases. Partner with other agencies and groups in these efforts. Watershed Aquatic Recovery Strategy (WARS) – Re-examine restoration priorities in the Forest’s WARS strategy to determine if designated high-priority subwatersheds should remain the focus of restoration. Within these and other priority subwatersheds, determine where infrastructure replacements or restoration can be most meaningful (i.e., improving riparian condition, streams flows, culvert barriers, etc.) to increase aquatic species and watershed resiliency. Education – Share results and develop educational tools to show how large-scale climate information can be used at smaller scales and what new challenges/opportunities exist. Improve Coordination - Forests are critical sources of water and habitat, but resource availability and conditions are changing, causing more uncertainty. Engage with communities and other agencies in adaptation strategies. CRITIQUE What important questions were not considered? – I would have liked to complete an evaluation on what climate will mean to fire severity and intensity in the Upper Salmon. Then see what cumulative impacts this would have had with other risks/threats. I would have also wanted to look at summer baseflow changes and water diversion closer. What were the most useful data sources? – By far the most important data sources for climate change predictions were local water temperature thermographs, weather stations, and USGS stream gauges used to construct the stream temperature model. The VIC model was essential for predicting changes in stream flow. Information on existing watershed and fish population condition and management threats was also critical to evaluate extinction risks to bull trout. What were the most important data deficiencies? – Many landscapes have some natural buffering capacity that will help minimize some climate change effects. We lacked information on groundwater, local air temperature data to determine which subwatersheds have the coldest summer temperatures, and water temperature data from high mountain lakes and streams that could have helped to evaluate this buffering capacity. What tools were most useful? – Bayesian belief networks were essential to evaluate the interaction of numerous variables and outcomes for baseline, risk/threats, ecological departure, and population extinction risks. Rocky Mountain Research Station stream temperature and VIC models were critical in looking at future climate change risks. What tools were most problematic? – The VIC model outputs were challenging to interpret. How much of an increase or decrease in flows was too much? How much change needed to occur before it would 180 Assessing the Vulnerability of Watersheds to Climate Change
Sawtooth National Forest Watershed Vulnerability Assessment, Intermountain Region (R4) impact populations or destabilize watershed conditions? Without assistance from researchers it would have been even a more subjective process in determining risk levels from certain climate changes. What could have been done differently in this process? – Each pilot Forest jumped into this very complex topic without a clear understanding of what basic climate change data was available in their area, what the best models are for future climate change predictions, and how to synthesize all this information to answer their key questions. There is a fine line between getting too much or too little direction. Too much direction can stifle creative approaches, and at times it was good to struggle through what was out there and how best to use it. However, it would have been helpful if the steering committee had made contacts with key climate change researchers before Forests proceeded too far in their analysis. For example, where is VIC data available nationally, what scale is the data, and how should it best be used to answer our key questions? If I had not had assistance from Trout Unlimited and Rocky Mountain Research Station, it would have been very difficult to complete and interpret the VIC and stream temperature models. PROJECT TEAM Core Team Assistance John Chatel (Sawtooth NF) Charlie Luce (RMRS) Kerry Overton (RMRS) Bruce Rieman (Emeritus Fisheries Scientist) Dan Isaak (RMRS) Emily Leavitt (RMRS) Seth Wenger (Trout Unlimited) Dona Horan (RMRS) Scott Vuono (Sawtooth NF) Jill Kuenzi (Sawtooth NF) PROJECT CONTACT John Chatel, Aquatics Program Managers, Sawtooth National Forest REFERENCES Aguado, E., D. R. Cayan, L. G. Riddle, and M. Roos, 1992. Climatic fluctuations and the timing of West Coast streamflow. J. Climate, 5, 1468–1483. Caissie, D. 2006. The thermal regime of rivers: a review. Freshwater Biology 51:1389–1406. Cayan DR, Kammerdiener S, Dettinger MD, Caprio JM, Peterson DH.2001. Changes in the onset of spring in the western United States. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 82(3):399–415. Crozier, L. G., and R. W. Zabel. 2006. Climate impacts at multiple scales: evidence for differential population responses in juvenile Chinook salmon. Journal of Animal Ecology 75:1100–1109. Dunham, J. B., and B. E. Rieman. 1999. Metapopulation structure of bull trout: influences of physical, biotic, and geometrical landscape characteristics. Ecological Applications 9:642–655. Dettinger, M. D. and D. R. Cayan, 1995. Large-scale atmospheric forcing of recent trends toward early snowmelt runoff in California. J. of Climate, 8, 606-623. Dunham, J. B., G. L. Vinyard, and B. E. Rieman. 1997. Habitat fragmentation and extinction risk of Lahontan cutthroat trout. North American Journal of Fisheries Management 17:1126–1133. 181 Assessing the Vulnerability of Watersheds to Climate Change
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AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS Authors* M
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ASSESSSING THE VULNERABILITY OF WAT
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staff; the task group included repr
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Figure 2. Conceptual model for asse
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Figure 3. Density of springs and sm
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Using Historic Data One finding con
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NF (Region 8) relied on information
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level of uncertainty. Though there
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climate (Casola et al. 2005). Only
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sensitivity. Most were derived from
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The sensitivity evaluation typicall
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in exposure. The result of combinin
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highest priority for management act
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to information affected the assessm
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with and rely on in many resource d
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Pilot National Forest Reports Conte
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Assessment of Watershed Vulnerabili
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Gallatin National Forest Watershed
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Helena National Forest Watershed Vu
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Chugach National Forest Watershed V
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