ConserveOnline - Modeling Intrinsic Habitat Potential for Salmonids in Oregon, by Kelly Burnett

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Modeling Intrinsic Habitat Potential for Salmonids in Oregon, by Kelly Burnett

By Web Admin on 6/5/2007 | Keyword(s): Session ii: existing approaches

Recognizing that neither data nor methods exist to quantify high-quality rearing habitat for salmon across large regions, we developed models that assess the “intrinsic potential” of streams to provide such habitat by capitalizing on published relationships among juvenile fish use, finer-scale habitat features, and persistent coarser-scale stream attributes. We developed models to generate a high-resolution stream network from digital elevation data and to derive the reach-scale stream attributes of mean annual flow, valley constraint, and channel gradient. Intrinsic potential was determined independently for juvenile steelhead and coho salmon as the geometric mean of values from species-specific index curves that relate stream attributes to intrinsic potential. The three stream attributes are partially compensatory, but the smallest index value has the greatest influence on intrinsic potential. Global sensitivity of intrinsic potential to stream attributes was investigated using SIMLAB. Results of the intrinsic potential model for coastal Oregon were evaluated with probability-sampled fish density data at the reach scale and with historical cannery records at the basin scale. Examples of model application in salmon conservation are presented for Oregon and California, with discussion of other environmental constraints (e.g., temperature) and potential biases arising in watersheds south of Cape Mendocino.

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