Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

3d Photogrammetry Quantifies Growth And External Erosion Of Individual Coral Colonies And Skeletons, Renata Ferrari, Will F. Figueira, Morgan S. Pratchett, Tatiana Boube, Arne Adam, Tania Kobelkowsky-Vidrio, Steve S. Doo, Trisha Brooke Atwood, Maria Byrne

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Growth and contraction of ecosystem engineers, such as trees, influence ecosystem structure and function. On coral reefs, methods to measure small changes in the structure of microhabitats, driven by growth of coral colonies and contraction of skeletons, are extremely limited. We used 3D reconstructions to quantify changes in the external structure of coral colonies of tabular Acropora spp., the dominant habitat-forming corals in shallow exposed reefs across the Pacific. The volume and surface area of live colonies increased by 21% and 22%, respectively, in 12 months, corresponding to a mean annual linear extension of 5.62 cm yr⁻¹ (±1.81 SE). …

Accounting For Spatial And Temporal Variation In Macroinvertebrate Community Abundances When Measuring The Food Supply Of Stream Salmonids, Nicholas Weber, Nicolaas Bouwes, Chris Jordan

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

The goal of salmonid habitat monitoring programs is to measure habitat attributes linked to salmonid productivity based on protocols that have sufficient precision to detect environmental variation at relevant spatial and temporal scales. Benthic macroinvertebrate community composition often is evaluated as part of habitat monitoring and assessment protocols, despite a lack of direct relationships between benthic composition and salmonid production. Macroinvertebrate drift provides a direct measure of the food resources available to stream salmonids, but drift is rarely evaluated as part of habitat monitoring protocols. This reluctance may stem from the complex spatial and temporal variability inherent in macroinvertebrate drift …

Accounting For Spatial And Temporal Variation In Macroinvertebrate Community Abundances When Measuring The Food Supply Of Stream Salmonids, Nicholas Weber, Nicolaas Bouwes, Chris Jordan

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

The goal of salmonid habitat monitoring programs is to measure habitat attributes linked to salmonid productivity based on protocols that have sufficient precision to detect environmental variation at relevant spatial and temporal scales. Benthic macroinvertebrate community composition often is evaluated as part of habitat monitoring and assessment protocols, despite a lack of direct relationships between benthic composition and salmonid production. Macroinvertebrate drift provides a direct measure of the food resources available to stream salmonids, but drift is rarely evaluated as part of habitat monitoring protocols. This reluctance may stem from the complex spatial and temporal variability inherent in macroinvertebrate drift …

Determining Annual Cryosphere Storage Contributions To Stream Flow Using Historical Hydrometric Records, Janice Brahney, Brian Menounos, Xiaohua Wei, Paul Jefferson Curtis

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Alpine glaciers and perennial snow fields are important hydrologic elements in many mountain environments providing runoff during the late summer and during periods of drought. Because relatively long records of glacier mass–balance data are absent from many glacierized catchments, it remains unclear to what extent shrinking perennial snow and glaciers have affected runoff trends from these watersheds. Here, we employ a hydrograph separation technique that uses a double mass curve in an attempt to isolate changes in runoff due to glacier retreat and disappearance of perennial snow. The method is tested using hydrometric data from 20 glacierized and 16 nonglacierized …

Evidence For A Climate-Driven Hydrologic Regime Shift In The Canadian Columbia Basin, Janice Brahney, Frank Weber, Vanessa Foord, John Janmaat, Paul Jefferson Curtis

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Water resources from the Columbia River Basin are intensely used for domestic, agricultural, industrial and hydroelectric generation needs. Water availability in the Pacific Northwest is influenced by several ocean–atmosphere modes of climate variability that occur in the Pacific Ocean. Climate change has the potential to alter these relationships and influence both the volume and timing of streamflow in the snowmelt-dominated tributaries to the Columbia River. Here, the historical influences of climate variability and recent climate warming on the volume and timing of streamflow for 40 tributary streams in the Columbia River Basin of Canada were evaluated. Regional relationships were found …

Rapid Surface-Water Volume Estimations In Beaver Ponds, Daniel J. Karran, Cherie J. Westbrook, Joseph Michael Wheaton, Carol A. Johnston, Angela Bedard-Haughn

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Beaver ponds are surface-water features that are transient through space and time. Such qualities complicate the inclusion of beaver ponds in local and regional water balances, and in hydrological models, as reliable estimates of surface-water storage are difficult to acquire without time- and labour-intensive topographic surveys. A simpler approach to overcome this challenge is needed, given the abundance of the beaver ponds in North America, Eurasia, and southern South America. We investigated whether simple morphometric characteristics derived from readily available aerial imagery or quickly measured field attributes of beaver ponds can be used to approximate surface-water storage among the range …

Wildfire In Utah: The Physical And Economic Consequences Of Wildfire, Paul Mark Jakus, Man-Keun Kim, Randy S. Martin, Ian Hammond, Edd Hammill, Nancy O. Mesner, Jacob Stout

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

PRELUDE

On June 26, 2012 a lightning strike ignited a wildfire in the Manti-La Sal National Forest of central Utah’s Carbon and Emery counties (Figure P.1). By the time the Seeley wildfire was contained three weeks later, some 48,000 acres of federal, state, and private land had been burned and $8.7 million in suppression costs expended (Styler 2012). According to the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS.gov) project, nearly one-third of the acreage was severely burned, damaging vegetation and soils for years to come. Severe burns vastly increase the erosion potential of burnt landscapes, and the steep lands of Huntington …

Assessing The Risk Of Carbon Dioxide Emissions From Blue Carbon Ecosystems, Catherine E. Lovelock, Trisha Brooke Atwood, Jeff Baldock, Carlos M. Duarte, Sharyn Hickey, Paul S. Lavery, Pere Masque, Peter I. Macreadie, Aurora M. Ricart, Oscar Serrano, Andy Steven

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

“Blue carbon” ecosystems, which include tidal marshes, mangrove forests, and seagrass meadows, have large stocks of organic carbon (C_org) in their soils. These carbon stocks are vulnerable to decomposition and – if degraded – can be released to the atmosphere in the form of CO₂. We present a framework to help assess the relative risk of CO₂ emissions from degraded soils, thereby supporting inclusion of soil C_org into blue carbon projects and establishing a means to prioritize management for their carbon values. Assessing the risk of CO₂ emissions after various kinds of disturbances …