Climate Change and Peak Flows: Informing Managers About Future Impacts to Streamflow Dynamics and Aquatic Habitat

What will the rivers of the Pacific Northwest look like in the future? Will they be stable or unstable? Will the waters be cold and clear or warm and muddy? Will they have salmon or other species? These questions motivated our two-year study of climate warming effects on headwater streams draining the Cascade Mountains. Using a novel combination of snow, geohydrology, and sediment transport models we assessed the vulnerability of stream channels to changing peak streamflow. Our snow modeling shows that with just a 2°C warming, snowfall shifts to rainfall at all elevations, peak snowpacks occur over two months earlier, and snowpacks are reduced by over half of historical values. Our geohydrology modeling shows that...

Categories: Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2012, CASC, Cascade Mountains, Completed, Deschutes River Basin, All tags... Northwest, Northwest, Northwest CASC, Projects by Region, Rivers, Streams and Lakes, Rivers, Streams and Lakes, Water, Coasts and Ice, Water, Coasts and Ice, Willamette River Basin, aquatic habitat, geomorphology, hydrologic extremes, peak flows, snow dynamics, vulnerability assessment, Fewer tags