Life Sciences Commons^™

Water Banking Can Help Great Salt Lake, Sarah E. Null

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Utah’s Great Salt Lake is a treasured resource, yet dedicated flows have not been established to preserve the economic, ecological, and cultural values that the lake provides. Utah’s prior appropriation law allocates water rights based on time of first use, meaning agricultural water uses typically have senior rights. Utah’s Water Banking Act, which was adopted in 2020, presents an opportunity to reallocate some water to the environment within existing appropriative rights water law.

Under the act, water users can create local water banks to temporarily lease water. Leased water can be used for various purposes, including environmental or agricultural uses. …

Evaluation Of Hydrograph Separation Techniques With Uncertain End-Member Composition, Eileen Page Lukens, Bethany T. Neilson, Kenneth H. Williams, Janice Brahney

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Hydrograph separation is one of many approaches used to analyse shifts in source water contributions to stream flow resulting from climate change in remote watersheds. Understanding these shifts is vital, as shifts in source water contributions to a stream can shape water management decisions. Because remote watersheds are often inaccessible and have poorly characterized contributing water sources, or end-members, it is critical to understand the implications of using different hydrograph separation techniques in these data-limited environments. To explore the uncertainty associated with different techniques, results from two hydrograph separation techniques, mass balance and principle component analysis, were compared using 3 …

Storing Water For The Environment: Technical Appendix B: An Experimental Reservoir Model For Storage And Allocation Of An Ecosystem Water Budget, Sarah Null, Harrison Zeff, Anna Sturrock

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Dams alter flow regimes, fragment rivers, and harm freshwater ecosystems (Munsch et al. 2022; Barbarossa et al. 2020). Yet, freshwater ecosystems are increasingly dependent on surface reservoirs for environmental flows and suitable water temperatures as rivers have become irrevocably altered by water development, consumptive water uses, land use change, and climate change (Grantham et al. 2020; Yarnell et al. 2020). This creates a paradox where dams have contributed to freshwater ecosystem decline, but are now instrumental for managing environmental water and enhancing downstream ecosystems.

Storing Water For The Environment: Operating Reservoirs To Improve California’S Freshwater Ecosystems, Sarah Null, Jeffrey Mount, Brian Gray, Kristen Dybala, Gokce Sencan, Anna Sturrock, Barton Thompson, Harrison Zeff

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

California’s freshwater ecosystems—its lakes, rivers, floodplains, meadows, natural and managed wetlands, and estuaries—are a vital part of the state’s natural infrastructure. These ecosystems provide numerous benefits, including water supply, hydropower, flood control, fisheries, recreation, and cultural and aesthetic value. They are also home to the nation’s most diverse array of plant and animal communities, with numerous freshwater species found only in California (Jensen et al. 1993; Grantham et al. 2017).

Effective Conservation Of Desert Riverscapes Requires Protection And Rehabilitation Of In-Stream Flows With Rehabilitation Approaches Tailored To Water Availability, Casey A. Pennock, Phaedra Budy, William W. Macfarlane

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Desert riverscape rehabilitation practitioners must contend with compounding effects of increasing human water demand, persistent drought, non-native species establishment, and climate change, which further stress desert riverine ecosystems such as rivers in the Colorado River basin, United States. Herein, we provide our perspective on the importance of natural flows, large floods in particular, for successful conservation and rehabilitation of riverscapes. We present ideas developed from our experience with rehabilitation projects across multiple desert tributary rivers with varying levels of habitat degradation and water abstraction. We propose spatially extensive measures such as protection of in-stream flows, tailoring rehabilitation efforts to available …

Examining Alternative Water Management Strategies To Support Rio Grande Silvery Minnow Conservation Within And Across Years, Timothy E. Walsworth, Phaedra Budy

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Rio Grande Silvery Minnow (RGSM) are currently constrained to only 5% of their historic range, and their persistence is threatened by highly altered and impaired habitat conditions (Bestgen and Platania 1991). These habitat conditions have resulted from reduced spring and summer flows due to natural variability and anthropogenic water development and extraction, which have resulted in substantial geomorphic changes (Swanson et al. 2011). Successful conservation of this endangered species will require determination of how available flows can be managed to provide conditions supporting growth, reproduction, and survival of RGSM within and across a variety of water years. Previous research has …

Simulated Dynamics Of Mixed Versus Uniform Grain Size Sediment Pulses In A Gravel-Bedded River, Muneer Ahammad, Jonathan A. Czuba, Allison M. Pfeiffer, Brendan P. Murphy, Patrick Belmont

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Mountain rivers often receive sediment in the form of episodic, discrete pulses from a variety of natural and anthropogenic processes. Once emplaced in the river, the movement of this sediment depends on flow, grain size distribution, and channel and network geometry. Here, we simulate downstream bed elevation changes that result from discrete inputs of sediment (10,000 m³), differing in volume and grain size distribution, under medium and high flow conditions. We specifically focus on comparing bed responses between mixed and uniform grain size sediment pulses. This work builds on a Lagrangian, bed-material sediment transport model and applies it …

Climate Change And Utah Ski Resorts: Impacts, Perceptions, And Adaptation Strategies, Emily J. Wilkins, Hadia Akbar, Tara C. Saley, Rachel Hager, Colten M. Elkin, Patrick Belmont, Courtney G. Flint, Jordan W. Smith

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Climate change is a threat to ski resorts, the ski industry, and mountain communities that rely on ski tourism. Ski resorts may be able to mitigate some of the social and economic impacts caused by climate change with proactive adaptation strategies. Using historical weather data, future climate projections, and interviews with ski resort managers in Utah (United States), this research investigates the effects of climate change on ski resorts across the state. We examine temperature change at all resorts within the state from 1980–2018 and climate projections from 2021–2100 under different climate change scenarios (RCPs 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5). We …

Trophic Niches Of Native And Nonnative Fishes Along A River-Reservoir Continuum, Casey A. Pennock, Zachary T. Ahrens, Mark C. Mckinstry, Phaedra Budy, Keith B. Gido

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Instream barriers can constrain dispersal of nonnative fishes, creating opportunities to test their impact on native communities above and below these barriers. Deposition of sediments in a river inflow to Lake Powell, USA resulted in creation of a large waterfall prohibiting upstream movement of fishes from the reservoir allowing us to evaluate the trophic niche of fishes above and below this barrier. We expected niche overlap among native and nonnative species would increase in local assemblages downstream of the barrier where nonnative fish diversity and abundance were higher. Fishes upstream of the barrier had more distinct isotopic niches and species …

(Re-)Defining Permaculture: Perspectives Of Permaculture Teachers And Practitioners Across The United States, Kaitlyn Spangler, Roslynn Brain Mccann, Rafter Sass Ferguson

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

The solutions-based design framework of permaculture exhibits transformative potential, working to holistically integrate natural and human systems toward a more just society. The term can be defined and applied in a breadth of ways, contributing to both strengths and weaknesses for its capacity toward change. To explore the tension of breadth as strength and weakness, we interviewed 25 prominent permaculture teachers and practitioners across the United States (US) regarding how they define permaculture as a concept and perceive the term’s utility. We find that permaculture casts a wide net that participants grapple with in their own work. They engaged in …

Constraining The Atmospheric Limb Of The Plastic Cycle, Janice Brahney, Natalie Mahowald, Marje Prank, Gavin Cornwell, Zbigniew Kilmont, Hitoshi Matsui, Kimberly Ann Prather

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Plastic pollution is one of the most pressing environmental and social issues of the 21st century. Recent work has highlighted the atmosphere’s role in transporting microplastics to remote locations [S. Allen et al., Nat. Geosci. 12, 339 (2019) and J. Brahney, M. Hallerud, E. Heim, M. Hahnenberger, S. Sukumaran, Science 368, 1257–1260 (2020)]. Here, we use in situ observations of microplastic deposition combined with an atmospheric transport model and optimal estimation techniques to test hypotheses of the most likely sources of atmospheric plastic. Results suggest that atmospheric microplastics in the western United States are primarily derived from secondary re-emission …

Evaluating The Relationship Between Meander-Bend Curvature, Sediment Supply, And Migration Rates, Mitchell Donovan, Patrick Belmont, Zoltán Sylvester

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

River meander migration plays a key role in the unsteady “conveyor belt” of sediment redistribution from source to sink areas. The ubiquity of river meandering is evident from remotely sensed imagery, which has allowed for long-term, high-resolution studies of river channel change and form-process relationships. Empirical, experimental, and theoretical research approaches have described two distinct relationships between channel curvature and river channel migration rates. In this study, we employ a novel application of time-series algorithms to calculate migration rates and channel curvature at sub-meander bend length scales using 6 decades of aerial imagery spanning 205 km of the Minnesota River …

Resilient And Rapid Recovery Of Native Trout After Removal Of A Non-Native Trout, Phaedra E. Budy, Timothy Walsworth, Gary P. Thiede, Paul D. Thompson, Matthew D. Mckell, Paul B. Holden, Paul D. Chase, W. Carl Saunders

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

While the importance of reducing impacts of non-native species is increasingly recognized in conservation, the feasibility of such actions is highly dependent upon several key uncertainties including stage of invasion, size of the ecosystem being restored, and magnitude of the restoration activity. Here, we present results of a multi-year, non-native brown trout (Salmo trutta) removal and native Bonneville cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii utah) response to this removal in a small tributary in the Intermountain West, United States. We monitored trout for 10 years prior to the onset of eradication efforts, which included 2 years of mechanical …

Trophic Structure Of Apex Fish Communities In Closed Versus Leaky Lakes Of Arctic Alaska, Stephen L. Klobucar, Phaedra Budy

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Despite low species diversity and primary production, trophic structure (e.g., top predator species, predator size) is surprisingly variable among Arctic lakes. We investigated trophic structure in lakes of arctic Alaska containing arctic char Salvelinus alpinus using stomach contents and stable isotope ratios in two geographically-close but hydrologically-distinct lake clusters to investigate how these fish may interact and compete for limited food resources. Aside from different lake connectivity patterns (‘leaky’ versus ‘closed’), differing fish communities (up to five versus only two species) between lake clusters allowed us to test trophic hypotheses including: (1) arctic char are more piscivorous, and thereby grow …

Water Development, Consumptive Water Uses, And The Great Salt Lake, Sarah E. Null, Wayne A. Wurtsbaugh

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Great Salt Lake (GSL) covers 5500 km² (2100 mi²) at its unimpacted elevation and is the eighth largest saline lake in the world. Its highly productive food web supports millions of migratory birds and the economic value of the lake is estimated at $1.5 billion US dollars in 2019. Droughts and wet cycles have caused huge fluctuations in lake level, area, and salinities, and this variation has masked anthropogenic impacts. Recent work, however, has determined that consumptive water uses in the watershed have depleted inflows by approximately 39%, with 63% used by agriculture, 11% by cities, 13% …

Restoring Lake Urmia: Moving Beyond A Uniform Lake Level (2-Page Summary), Somayeh Sima, Dory Rosenberg, Wayne A. Wurtsbaugh, Sarah E. Null, Karin M. Kettenring

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

More than 5 million people live near Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran, one of the world's largest hypersaline lakes. Over the past two decades, the lake has lost 95% of its volume, lake level has dropped more than 7 m, and lake restoration has gained widespread interest. The government seeks a uniform "ecological" target lake level of 1274.1 m above sea level to lower salinity below 240 gL^-1 and recover brine shrimp (Artemia spp.) and flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus).

We have synthesized over 40 years of available data, defined 8 ecosystem services for human health, water quality, ecology, recreation, and …

Keeping It Classy: Classification Of Live Fish And Ghost Pit Tags Detected With A Mobile Pit Tag Interrogation System Using An Innovative Analytical Approach, J. Benjamin Stout, Mary Conner, Phaedra Budy, Peter Mackinnon, Mark Mckinstry

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

The ability of passive integrated transponder (PIT) tag data to improve demographic parameter estimates has led to the rapid advancement of PIT tag systems. However, ghost tags create uncertainty about detected tag status (i.e., live fish or ghost tag) when using mobile interrogation systems. We developed a method to differentiate between live fish and ghost tags using a random forest classification model with a novel data input structure based on known fate PIT tag detections in the San Juan River (New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah, USA). We used our model to classify detected tags with an overall error rate of …

Remarkable Response Of Native Fishes To Invasive Trout Suppression Varies With Trout Density, Temperature, And Annual Hydrology, Brian D. Healy, Robert C. Schelly, Charles B. Yackulic, Emily C. Omana Smith, Phaedra Budy

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Recovery of imperiled fishes can be achieved through suppression of invasives, but outcomes may vary with environmental conditions. We studied the response of imperiled desert fishes to an invasive brown (Salmo trutta) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) suppression program in a Colorado River tributary, with natural flow and longitudinal variation in thermal characteristics. We investigated trends in fish populations related to suppression and tested hypotheses about the impacts of salmonid densities, hydrologic variation, and spatial–thermal gradients on the distribution and abundance of native fish species using zero-inflated generalized linear mixed effects models. Between 2012 and 2018, …

Individual Behavior Drives Ecosystem Function And The Impacts Of Harvest, Jacob E. Allgeier, Timothy J. Cline, Timothy E. Walsworth, Gus Wathen, Craig A. Layman, Daniel E. Schindler

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Current approaches for biodiversity conservation and management focus on sustaining high levels of diversity among species to maintain ecosystem function. We show that the diversity among individuals within a single population drives function at the ecosystem scale. Specifically, nutrient supply from individual fish differs from the population average >80% of the time, and accounting for this individual variation nearly doubles estimates of nutrients supplied to the ecosystem. We test how management (i.e., selective harvest regimes) can alter ecosystem function and find that strategies targeting more active individuals reduce nutrient supply to the ecosystem up to 69%, a greater effect than …

Improving Lake Mixing Process Simulations In The Community Land Model By Using K Profile Parameterization, Qunhui Zhang, Jiming Jin, Xiaochun Wang, Phaedra E. Budy, Nick Barrett, Sarah E. Null

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

We improved lake mixing process simulations by applying a vertical mixing scheme, K profile parameterization (KPP), in the Community Land Model (CLM) version 4.5, developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Vertical mixing of the lake water column can significantly affect heat transfer and vertical temperature profiles. However, the current vertical mixing scheme in CLM requires an arbitrarily enlarged eddy diffusivity to enhance water mixing. The coupled CLM-KPP considers a boundary layer for eddy development, and in the lake interior water mixing is associated with internal wave activity and shear instability. We chose a lake in Arctic Alaska and …

Impacts Of Eutrophication On Benthic Invertebrates & Fish Prey Of Birds In Farmington And Bear River Bays Of Great Salt Lake, Trip Armstrong, Wayne A. Wurtsbaugh

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Farmington Bay’s watershed is primarily in the heavily populated metropolitan Salt Lake City, and consequently, it receives approximately 50% of its inflow from nutrient‐ rich wastewater releases. The high nutrient loads make it eutrophic and reducing the loading has been suggested to reduce blooms of toxic cyanobacteria. However, the bay also supports thousands of wading birds and waterfowl, and there is concern that reducing nutrient inflows might reduce the production of bottom‐dwelling insects and other invertebrates that the birds rely upon.

Estimating Total And Bioavailable Nutrient Loading To Utah Lake From The Atmosphere, Janice Brahney

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Anthropogenic activities have led to increases in the emission, atmospheric transport, and deposition of key nutrients. In addition, climate change along with anthropogenic soil disturbance has led to recent increases in the mobilization and transport of soils and other particles through the atmosphere, collectively described here as dust. These increased emissions have led to growing interest and concern over the composition of atmospheric deposition and total loading of nutrients to aquatic systems. In the last several decades, much effort has been directed towards the measurement and modeling of nitrogen deposition through wet and aerosol deposition. Less is known about the …

Effects Of Severe Water Stress On Maize Growth Processes In The Field, Libing Song, Jiming Jin, Jianqiang He

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

In this study, we investigated the effects of water stress on the growth and yield of summer maize (Zea mays L.) over four phenological stages: Seedling, jointing, heading, and grain-filling. Water stress treatments were applied during each of these four stages in a water-controlled field in the Guanzhong Plain, China between 2013 and 2016. We found that severe water stress during the seedling stage had a greater effect on the growth and development of maize than stress applied during the other three stages. Water stress led to lower leaf area index (LAI) and biomass owing to reduced intercepted photosynthetically active …

Climate Change Accelerates Recovery Of The Tatra Mountain Lakes From Acidification And Increases Their Nutrient And Chlorophyll A Concentrations, Jiří Kopáček, Jiří Kaňa, Svetlana Bičárová, Janice Brahney, Tomáš Navrátil, Stephen A. Norton, Petr Porcal, Evžen Stuchlik

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

We evaluated changes in the concentration of cations, anions, nutrients (dissolved organic carbon, DOC; phosphorus, P; and nitrogen forms including nitrate, NO₃⁻ and total organic nitrogen, TON), and chlorophyll a (Chl-a) in 31 Tatra Mountain lakes in Slovakia and Poland during their recovery from acidic deposition (1992–2018). Typical effects of decreasing acidic deposition on the lakes’ water composition, such as decreasing base cation concentrations, were confounded by climate change and catchment characteristics, including areal proportions of well-developed soils and scree. A climate-related increase in physical erosion provided freshly exposed unweathered granodiorite (the dominant bedrock) to chemical …

The Future Of Blue Carbon Science, Peter I. Macreadie, Andrea Anton, John A. Raven, Nicola Beaumont, Rod M. Connolly, Daniel A. Friess, Jeffrey J. Kelleway, Hilary Kennedy, Tomohiro Kuwae, Paul S. Lavery, Catherine E. Lovelock, Dan A. Smale, Eugenia T. Apostolaki, Trisha Brooke Atwood, Jeff Baldock, Thomas S. Bianchi, Gail L. Chmura, Bradley D. Eyre, James W. Fourqurean, Jason M. Hall-Spencer, Mark Huxham, Iris E. Hendriks, Dorte Krause-Jensen, Dan Laffoley, Tiziana Luisetti, Núria Marbà, Pere Masque, Karen J. Mcglathery, J. Patrick Megonigal, Daniel Murdiyarso, Bayden D. Russell, Rui Santos, Oscar Serrano, Brian R. Silliman, Kenta Watanabe, Carlos M. Duarte

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

The term Blue Carbon (BC) was first coined a decade ago to describe the disproportionately large contribution of coastal vegetated ecosystems to global carbon sequestration. The role of BC in climate change mitigation and adaptation has now reached international prominence. To help prioritise future research, we assembled leading experts in the field to agree upon the top-ten pending questions in BC science. Understanding how climate change affects carbon accumulation in mature BC ecosystems and during their restoration was a high priority. Controversial questions included the role of carbonate and macroalgae in BC cycling, and the degree to which greenhouse gases …

Relating Spatial Patterns Of Stream Metabolism To Distributions Of Juveniles Salmonids At The River Network Scale, Matthew J. Kaylor, Seth M. White, W. Carl Saunders, Dana R. Warren

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Understanding the factors that drive spatial patterns in stream ecosystem processes and the distribution of aquatic biota is important to effective management of these systems and the conservation of biota at the network scale. In this study, we conducted field surveys throughout an extensive river network in NE Oregon that supports diminishing populations of wild salmonids. We collected data on physical habitat, nutrient concentrations, biofilm standing stocks, stream metabolism (gross primary production [GPP] and ecosystem respiration [ER]), and ESA‐listed juvenile salmonid density from approximately 50 sites across two sub‐basins. Our goals were to (1) to evaluate network patterns in these …

Rooting Depth And Extreme Precipitation Regulate Groundwater Recharge In The Thick Unsaturated Zone: A Case Study, Jin Shao, Bingcheng Si, Jiming Jin

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Many modeling efforts have been made for shallow soil, but little has been done in deep-rooted ecosystems, especially on the long-term impact of deep-rooted vegetation to understand the impact of vegetation type on hydrological processes. In this study, we used the Community Land Model (CLM) version 4.0 to simulate the soil water dynamics and groundwater recharge with shallow-rooted and deep-rooted vegetation cover in the critical soil zone of 100 m thickness. We selected winter wheat and summer maize to represent shallow-rooted vegetation and apple trees as deep-rooted vegetation growing in the semi-humid Loess Plateau of China over the period of …

Twentieth Century Geomorphic Changes Of The Lower Green River In Canyonlands National Park, Utah: An Investigation Of Timing, Magnitude And Process, Alexander E. Walker, John C. Schmidt, Paul E. Grams

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Since the early 20^th century, the Green River, the longest tributary of the Colorado River, has narrowed, decreasing available riparian and aquatic habitat.

Initially, the widespread establishment of non-native tamarisk was considered to be the primary driver of channel narrowing. An alternative hypothesis postulated that changes in hydrology drove narrowing. Reductions in total streamflow and changes to flow regime occurred due to wide-spread water development, decreased snowmelt flood magnitude, and the increased cyclicity of wet and dry years. The two hypotheses agree on channel narrowing, but each influences modern river management differently. A tamarisk-driven model of narrowing implies that …

Marine Reserves Shape Seascapes On Scales Visible From Space, Elizabeth M. P. Madin, Alastair R. Harborne, Aaron M. T. Harmer, Osmar J. Luiz, Trisha Brooke Atwood, Brian J. Sullivan, Joshua S. Madin

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Marine reserves can effectively restore harvested populations, and ‘mega-reserves’ increasingly protect large tracts of ocean. However, no method exists of monitoring ecological responses at this large scale. Herbivory is a key mechanism structuring ecosystems, and this consumer–resource interaction's strength on coral reefs can indicate ecosystem health. We screened 1372, and measured features of 214, reefs throughout Australia's Great Barrier Reef using high-resolution satellite imagery, combined with remote underwater videography and assays on a subset, to quantify the prevalence, size and potential causes of ‘grazing halos’. Halos are known to be seascape-scale footprints of herbivory and other ecological interactions. Here we …

The Power Of Environmental Observatories For Advancing Multidisciplinary Research, Outreach, And Decision Support: The Case Of The Minnesota River Basin, K. B. Gran, C. Dolph, A. Baker, M. Bevis, S. J. Cho, J. A. Czuba, B. Dalzell, M. Danesh-Yazdi, A. T. Hansen, Sara A. Kelly, Z. Lang, J. Schwenk, Patrick Belmont, J. C. Finlay, P. Kumar, S. Rabotyagov, G. Roehrig, Peter Wilcock, E. Foufoula-Georgiou

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Observatory‐scale data collection efforts allow unprecedented opportunities for integrative, multidisciplinary investigations in large, complex watersheds, which can affect management decisions and policy. Through the National Science Foundation‐funded REACH (REsilience under Accelerated CHange) project, in collaboration with the Intensively Managed Landscapes‐Critical Zone Observatory, we have collected a series of multidisciplinary data sets throughout the Minnesota River Basin in south‐central Minnesota, USA, a 43,400‐km2 tributary to the Upper Mississippi River. Postglacial incision within the Minnesota River valley created an erosional landscape highly responsive to hydrologic change, allowing for transdisciplinary research into the complex cascade of environmental changes that occur due to hydrology …