ANALYSIS AND MODELING OF LONG-TERM STREAM TEMPERATURES ON THE STEAMBOAT CREEK BASIN,OREGON: IMPLICATIONS FOR LAND USE AND FISH HABITAT1

ABSTRACT: Steamboat Creek basin is an important source of timber and provides crucial spawning and rearing habitat for anadromous steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Because stream temperatures are near the upper limit of tolerance for the survival of juvenile steelhead, the possible long-term effect of clear-cut logging on stream temperatures was assessed. Twenty-year (1969–1989) records of summer stream temperature and flow from four tributaries and two reaches of Steamboat Creek and Boulder Creek (a nearby unlogged watershed) were analyzed. Logging records for the Steamboat Creek basin and air temperature records also were used in the analysis. A time-series model of the components of stream temperature (seasonal cycle of solar radiation, air temperature, streamflow, an autoregressive term of order 1, and a linear trend variable) was fitted to the water-temperature data. The linear trend variable was significant in all the fitted models except Bend Creek (a tributary fed by cool ground-water discharge) and Boulder Creek. Because no trends in either climate (i.e., air temperature) or streamflow were found in the data, the trend variable was associated with the pre-1969 loss and subsequent regrowth of riparian vegetation and shading canopies.     

EXAMINING LAND USE INFLUENCES ON STREAM HABITATS AND MACROINVERTEBRATES: A GIS APPROACH1

ABSTRACT: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were used to assess the relationships between land use patterns and the physical habitat and macroinvertebrate fauna of streams within similar sized watersheds. Eleven second or third order watersheds ranging from highly urbanized to heavily forested were selected along Lake Superior's North Shore. Land use patterns within the watersheds were quantified using readily available digital land use/land cover information, with a minimum mapping resolution of 16 ha. Physical habitat features, describing substrate characteristics and stream morphology, were characterized at sample points within each stream. Principle component and correlation analyses were used to identify relationships between macroinvertebrates and stream physical habitat, and between habitat and land use patterns. Substrate characteristics and presence of coarse woody debris were found to have the strongest correlations with macreinvertebrate assemblage richness and composition. Agricultural and urban land use was correlated with substrate characteristics. Algal abundance, associated with macroinvertebrate compositional differences, was correlated with housing density and non-forest land covers. The use of readily available spatial data, even at this relatively coarse scale, provides a means to detect the primary relationships between land use and stream habitat quality; finer-resolution GIS databases are needed to assess more subtle influences, such as those due to riparian conditions.     

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN WATERSHED MANAGEMENT: COMBINING NOMINAL GROUP PROCESS AND MICROCOMPUTERS1

ABSTRACT: The growing concern for public participation in water resource decision-making has invited researchers to improve and develop reliable, quick, and inexpensive techniques for measuring public preferences. It is increasingly clear that traditional participation mechanisms, though useful, are no longer sufficient in providing the level of participation desired by many. A combination of microcomputer technology with Nominal Group Process (a step-by-step process ending in ranked recommendations) offers numerous possibilities for active participatory planning. Efforts at participation occurring through a well developed and defined process cannot be successful without a sensitivity to the conceptual, methodological, and pragmatic problems involved. This paper prefaces presentation of an alternative active process technique with discussion of the theoretical basis of participatory democracy and the frustration with practical implementation procedures.     

MULTICRITERION ANALYSIS OF FOREST WATERSHED MANAGEMENT ALTERNATIVES1

ABSTRACT: The impacts of alternative forest watershed management practices are examined from a multicriterion viewpoint in order to select the most satisfactory management scheme. The selection process is carried out using two types of multicriterion decision making techniques: the outranking types of ELECTRE I and II, and the distance-based type of compromise programming (CP). The process is illustrated using the U.S. Forest Service Beaver Creek Experimental Watershed in the Salt-Verde River Basin of Arizona as an example. The desired objectives of the experimental study and the alternative forest watershed resources management schemes are transformed into an evaluation matrix of alternatives versus criteria array. Analyses of the matrix using the aforementioned techniques result in a complete preference ordering of the feasible alternatives in the cases of ELECTRE LI and CP and a partial ordering when ELECTRE I is used. In addition, some sensitivity analyses have been performed and showed ELECTRE II and CP to be fairly robust with respect to parameter changes, while ELECTRE I being highly sensitive to changes in threshold levels. Overall the three techniques pointed out that 65 percent vegetation cut is the best management scheme, while the next best is shown to be 50 percent vegetation cut.     

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ANNUAL RUNOFF AND WATERSHED AREA FOR THE EASTERN UNITED STATES1

ABSTRACT: As part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's effort to determine the long-term effects of acidic deposition on surface water chemistry, annual runoff was estimated for about 1000 ungaged sites in the eastern U.S. using runoff contour maps. One concern in using contour maps was that a bias may be introduced in the runoff estimates due to the size of the 1000 ungaged sites relative to the size of the watersheds used in developing the maps. To determine if a bias was present the relationship between the annual runoff (expressed as depth) and the watershed area for the Northeast (NE) and Southern Blue Ridge Province (SBRP) was tested using five regional data bases. One short-term data base (1984 Water Year, n = 531) and two long-term data bases (1940–57, n = 134 and 1951–80, n = 342) were used in the NE. In the SBRP one short-term database (1984 Water Year, n = 531) and one long-term data base (1951–80, n = 60) were used. For the NE and the SBRP, runoff was not directly correlated with watershed area using the five regional databases. Also, runoff normalized by precipitation was not related to watershed area.     

THE LAW OF THE COLORADO RIVER: COPING WITH SEVERE SUSTAINED DROUGHT1

ABSTRACT: The waters of the Colorado River are divided among seven states according to a complex ‘Law of the River’ drawn from interstate compacts, international treaties, statutes, and regulations. The Law of the River creates certain priorities among the states and the Republic of Mexico, and in the event of a severe sustained drought, the Law of the River dictates the distribution of water and operation of the elaborate reservoir system. Earlier work indicated that there is remarkable resilience in the system for established uses of water in the Lower Basin of the Colorado River. This work shows, based on an application of the Law of the River using computer modeling of operations of facilities on the Colorado River, that there may be serious environmental consequences and related legal restraints on how the water is used in times of shortage and that the existing legal and institutional framework governing the Colorado River does not adequately address all the issues that would be raised in a severe sustained drought. Several possible legal options for dealing with drought in the context of the Law of the River are identified.     

THE EFFECTS OF A MOVING RAINSTORM ON DIRECT RUNOFF PROPERTIES1

ABSTRACT: The effects of a moving rainstorm on flood runoff characteristics were investigated. A flood hydrograph simulation model called “FH-Model” and a natural watershed were used. A hypothetical rainstorm of 50 years recurrence interval, 75 mm depth, and 4 hours duration was used to show the effects of velocity and direction of the moving rainstorm on the runoff characteristics. Compared with an equivalent stationary rainstorm (ESRS), the peak flow caused by a rainstorm moving in a downstream direction with a speed equal to channel velocity, V, was 27.5 percent higher and the peak flow caused by the same rainstorm moving in an upstream direction was 21.7 percent smaller. These percentages reduced to 10.5 percent and 8.6 percent for storms moving downstream and upstream, respectively, at three times the channel velocity, 3V. There were negligible differences in the time of peak, T_p between runoff caused by storms moving downstream and runoff produced by ESRS. However, T_p for a storm moving upstream at V velocity was 82 percent higher than that produced by ESRS, but was reduced to 27 percent higher when the storm velocity was 3V.     

WATER YIELD AUGMENTATION THROUGH FOREST AND RANGE MANAGEMENT - ISSUES FOR THE FUTURE1

The demand for more water is increasing throughout the country. Research on upland watersheds clearly demonstrates that water yield can be increased using forest and range management practices. Based on the experience of the past several decades and a review of six papers in a recent AWRA series on water yield augmentation through vegetation management, the following issues and concerns are discussed: predicting increased yields from large basins; economic evaluation of additional flows; court acceptance and need for system models; the legal question of ownership and transferability of increased yields; and management emphasis on private and federal lands. The immediate potential for water yield augmentation is on carefully selected watersheds that have the bio-physical potential to produce high value water under environmentally acceptable multiple use management. We predict water yield management on a broader scale will result from increased pressures to solve the legal and economic issues involved.     

EVALUATING INTERDEPENDENT WATERSHED CONSERVATION AND GROUND WATER MANAGEMENT REFORMS1

Abstract: Conserving the watershed can help to preserve ground water recharge. Preventing overuse of available water through pricing reforms can also substantially increase the value of an aquifer. Inasmuch as users are accustomed to low prices, efficiency pricing may be politically infeasible, and watershed conservation may be considered as an alternative. We estimate and compare welfare gains from pricing reform and watershed conservation for a water management district in Oahu that obtains its water supply from the Pearl Harbor aquifer. We find that pricing reform is welfare superior to watershed conservation unless the latter is able to prevent very large recharge losses. Watershed conservation that yields net gains in combination with pricing reform may cause net losses without the pricing reform. If adoption of watershed conservation delays the implementation of pricing reform, the benefits of the latter are significantly reduced.