Stream flow and temperature maps - Effect of Climate Change on Salmon Population Vulnerability
Stream flow and temperature maps (Effect of Climate Change on Salmon Population Vulnerability)
eng
Dataset
Non-NOAA Funded
Climate/Ocean exchanges
Habitat characteristics
climate change
habitat
salmon
Pacific NW
1. Steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and other Pacific salmon are threatened by unsustainable
levels of harvest, genetic introgression from hatchery stocks and degradation or loss of freshwater
habitat. Projected climate change is expected to further stress salmon through increases
in stream temperatures and altered stream flows.
2. We demonstrate a spatially explicit method for assessing salmon vulnerability to projected
climatic changes (scenario for the years 20302059), applied here to steelhead salmon across
the entire Pacific Northwest (PNW). We considered steelhead exposure to increased temperatures
and more extreme high and low flows during four of their primary freshwater life stages:
adult migration, spawning, incubation and rearing. Steelhead sensitivity to climate change
was estimated on the basis of their regulatory status and the condition of their habitat. We
assessed combinations of exposure and sensitivity to suggest actions that may be most effective
for reducing steelhead vulnerability to climate change.
3. Our relative ranking of locations suggested that steelhead exposure to increases in temperature
will be most widespread in the southern Pacific Northwest, whereas exposure to substantial
flow changes will be most widespread in the interior and northern Pacific Northwest.
There were few locations where we projected that steelhead had both relatively low exposure
and sensitivity to climate change.
4. Synthesis and applications. There are few areas where habitat protection alone is likely to
be sufficient to conserve steelhead under the scenario of climate change considered here.
Instead, our results suggest the need for coordinated, landscape-scale actions that both
increase salmon resilience and ameliorate climate change impacts, such as restoring connectivity
of floodplains and high-elevation habitats.
Stream flow and temperature gridded data for PNW.
Northwest Fisheries Science Center
Beechie, Tim
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/18012
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/17697
northlimit=47.6449;
eastlimit=-122.3062;
southlimit=47.6449;
westlimit=-122.3062;
name=Pacific NW: Columbia Basin and coastal Pacific NW;
start=2010-01-01;
end=2013-09-30;
NA