Monitoring Ecological Impacts – Concepts and Practice in Flowing Waters

Degraded wetland systems with impaired hydraulic connections have resulted in diminished habitat opportunity for salmonid fishes and other native flora and fauna in the Pacific Northwest. Many of these lost habitats were once intertidal freshwater marshes and swamps. Restoration of these systems is effected in part by reestablishing tidal processes that promote connectivity, with a central goal of restoring rearing habitat for juvenile Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus spp. In the Grays River tidal freshwater system of Washington, we measured hydrologic changes that resulted from the removal of tide gates from diked pastureland and we determined the subsequent time series of salmonid abundance and size frequency in the restoring marshes. Dike breaching caused an immediate return of full semidiurnal tidal fluctuations to the pasturelands. Juvenile Pacific salmonids quickly expanded into this newly available habitat and used prey items that were presumably produced within the marshes. Habitat use varied ...

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Juvenile Salmonid Use of Reconnected Tidal Freshwater Wetlands in Grays River, Lower Columbia River Basin

Protocols for monitoring salmon habitat restoration projects are essential for the US Army Corps of Engineers' environmental efforts in the Columbia River estuary This manual provides state-of-the science data collection and analysis methods for landscape features, water quality, and fish species composition, among others

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Protocols for Monitoring Habitat Restoration Projects in the Lower Columbia River and Estuary

Simulation of cumulative effects of nearshore restoration projects on estuarine hydrodynamics

: Our studies in the lower 100-km of the Columbia River estuary quantified historical habitat changes and provided new information about contemporary abundance patterns, life histories, and habitat associations of Chinook salmon. The conceptual framework for this research defined salmon performance in the estuary as the product of three factors: habitat opportunity, habitat capacity, and the structure/life histories of source populations. Our 2002-2008 survey results provided empirical data to support this framework by quantifying Chinook salmon performance in terms of temporal abundance, life history and stock-group diversity, foraging success, and growth, as well as by quantifying the relationships between stock groups and one or more of these factors. In Part I, we detail our reconstruction of historical habitat opportunities and changes in the estuary as influenced by the tide, river flows, and temperature. In Part II, we depict contemporary habitat opportunities based on present-day patterns of salmon distribution and abundance and upon various physical factors that influence fish access to shallow-water rearing areas. In Part III, we compare the capacity of different wetland and nearshore habitats in supporting juvenile Chinook salmon as indicated by variations in prey availability, salmon diet, and rates of consumption. Finally, in Part IV, we examine the effects of upriver population structure and life histories on estuary rearing behavior and performance, including the genetic sources of individual Chinook salmon found within particular habitats and stock-specific patterns of residency and growth. These surveys provided new information about the present estuarine habitat associations of juvenile salmon. They also provided data for estimates of historical change in habitat conditions, estimates of historical change in salmon life histories, and analyses of food webs. Below we summarize major conclusions drawn from these evaluations.

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Estuarine Habitat and Juvenile Salmon: Current and Historical Linkages in the Lower Columbia River and Estuary

This report is the third annual report of a six-year project to evaluate the cumulative effects of habitat restoration action in the Columbia River Estuary (CRE). The project is being conducted for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) by the Marine Sciences Laboratory of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the Pt. Adams Biological Field Station of the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce. Measurement of the cumulative effects of ecological restoration projects in the Columbia River estuary is a formidable task because of the size and complexity of the estuarine landscape and the meta-populations of salmonids in the Columbia River basin. Despite the challenges presented by this system, developing and implementing appropriate indicators and methods to measure cumulative effects is the best way to enable estuary managers to track the overall effectiveness of investments in estuarine restoration projects. This project is developing methods to quantify the cumulative effects of multiple restoration activities in the CRE. The overall objectives of the 2006 study were to continue to develop techniques to assess cumulative effects, refine the standard monitoring protocols, and initiate development of an adaptive management system for Corps of Engineers’ habitat restoration monitoring efforts in the CRE. (The adaptive management effort will be reported at a later date.) Field studies during 2006 were conducted in tidal freshwater at Kandoll Farm on the lower Grays River and tidal brackish water at Vera Slough on Youngs Bay. Within each of area, we sampled one natural reference site and one restoration site. We addressed the overall objectives with field work in 2006 that, coupled with previous field data, had specific objectives and resulted in some important findings that are summarized here by chapter in this report. Each chapter of the report contains data on particular monitored variables for pre- and post-restoration conditions at both the Kandoll and Vera study areas.

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Evaluating Cumulative Ecosystem Response to Restoration Projects in the Columbia River Estuary, Annual Report 2006

: The Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District (BPA/Corps) jointly instituted the Columbia Estuary Ecosystem Restoration Program (CEERP) to implement federal ecosystem restoration actions and research, monitoring, and evaluation (RME) in the lower Columbia River and estuary (LCRE). The CEERP is composed of three programmatic elements: the Strategy Report, Action Plan, and this Synthesis Memorandum. The overall goal of the CEERP is to understand, conserve, and restore ecosystems in the LCRE. Relative to this goal, the specific CEERP objectives are as follows: Increase the opportunity for access by aquatic organisms to shallow-water habitats. Increase the capacity and quality of estuarine and tidal-fluvial ecosystems. Improve ecosystem realized functions. As a companion to the Strategy Report and Action Plan under the adaptive management process, this CEERP 2012 Synthesis Memorandum summarizes the state of the science of salmon ecology and habitat restoration in tidally influenced areas of the LCRE to provide an integrated scientific basis for the future strategic direction of ecosystem restoration. The findings and recommendations in this report are directed at refining both the action plan and the strategy for meeting the objectives of CEERP.

G. C. Roegner

Papers

Evaluating Cumulative Ecosystem Response to Restoration Projects in the Columbia River Estuary, Annual Report 2006

Columbia Estuary Ecosystem Restoration Program. 2012 Synthesis Memorandum