Transcript CSES Review 2004: Coastal Zone

CSES Review 2004: Coastal Zone
Moving to Horizontal Integration
Summary
What we did
 Where we stopped for lack of funding
 Shift in concept to watershed management
 Seed money for one year to get started:
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– West side hydrology [sediments & water quality].
– Multidimensional watershed management.
 Where we propose to go
From Coastal Hazards to
Watershed Management
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1995-2000 focused on impacts of CV on coastal zone,
particularly hazards (flooding, erosion, and invasive spp.)
Work done in full collaboration with Washington Dept. of
Ecology (WDOE).
Used CV results to project impacts of CC for 1997
National Assessment (Mote et al. 1999, 2003).
As result of Strategic Plan for 2000-2005, decided to shift
focus of coastal work to watershed management
– response to acute need of Shorelands Mgmt. Program in WDOE
– to facilitate horizontal integration within CIG.
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FY ‘01 funds insufficient to support initiative.
Group put on hold.
Integrated Coastal Watershed
Management
Climate change
(altered water cycle)
Human activities
(resource & land use)
Climate change
Human activities
(aquaculture,
development)
Climate change
(sea level rise & ocean mixing)
Freshwater habitat
Human activities
(fishing)
(water quality, quantity &
timing)
Health & Viability of
PNW salmon
Estuarine habitat
(water quality, mixing
processes)
Ocean habitat
Research Design for Coastal
Watershed Management
Overall objectives:
(1)
Examine multiple pathway linkages between
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(2)
(3)
human activities at watershed scale, e.g., land use/land cover
change, including forestry,
changes in stream hydrology and conditions,
effects on riparian and in-stream habitats, salmon productivity,
and general estuarine ecology
Analyze implications for resource management for
specific resource issues
Apply findings to a growing institutional movement
among some stakeholders for multidimensional resource
management at the watershed level.
Some Research Questions
Climate Impacts on the Estuary
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How will a world of multiple stresses--climate variability, climate
change, and anthropogenic effects-- affect streamflow and in-stream
habitat?
What effects are projected levels of climate change in the PNW likely
to have on estuarine water quality, especially salinity and temperature?
What effects will increasing sea level rise have on physical
oceanographic parameters in estuaries, especially ocean-estuary
exchange rates, mixing patterns, salinity, and the tidal prism?
What effects will estuarine water quality changes have on primary and
secondary productivity? And will such changes significantly affect the
shellfish industry and estuarine susceptibility to invasive spp.?
Research Questions,cont’d.
Effective Institutions for Integrated Coastal
Management
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How are the prototype watershed-centric management
regimes which have emerged in WA. & OR. structured and
how functionally similar are they?
How do these regimes function with respect to
management of the resources and integration of state and
federal resource management agency mandates?
How is such planning and management then integrated
with what exists at the local government level and how
adaptable are these structures to climate variability and
change?
FY ‘03 SEED MONEY TO GET
STARTED
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Adapt West side (Cascades) hydrologic models to
deal with sediments & water quality issues. (1
grad. RA).
Begin field work--observations, interviewing, etc.-in prototype watershed-centric management
structures linking Fed./State/local government
activities. (1 grad. RA--detailed comparison of
Skagit Co., WA. & Tillamook Co., OR.).
Projected Decision Support
Utility of New Approach
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On terrestrial side, assist decision-makers’
capabilities to assess & manage risks more
comprehensively, combining the climate and
human footprints in determining appropriate
margins for limiting development, maintaining
habitat, and reducing stream degeneration--esp.
applicable to threatened & endangered ESU’s of
salmonids.
Decision Support Utility, cont’d.
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On marine side, distinguish between estuarine & coastal
ocean impacts of CV & CC. Develop comprehensive
understanding of estuarine dynamics in specific locations in
order to assess likely effects of CC.
Re: coastal ocean, primary policy questions relate to
understanding the effects of CV & CC on the marine survival
of salmonids & how this information can inform decisions
about releases of smolts to the ocean & escapement of adults
on their return to spawning streams.
Recognize the entire suite of risks faced by salmonids, both
terrestrial & marine, and adjust policies in the terrestrial
dimension to include the magnitude of risk represented in the
marine dimension.