A Method for Estimating Monthly Freshwater Discharge Affecting British Columbia Coastal Waters

Morrison, Jonathan; Foreman, M. G. G.; Masson, Diane

doi:10.1080/07055900.2011.637667

Cited by 64 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Currently, the average freshwater discharge in our study area is approximately 780 km 3 /year, or roughly twice the magnitude of the annual discharge of the Mississippi River Basin (Morrison et al 2011;Neal et al 2010). Projected declines in PAS are anticipated to moderate the storage of water as snow, thereby changing the magnitude and timing of seasonal snowmelt runoff (Shanley and Albert 2014).…”

Section: Implications For Freshwater Hydrology and Fishesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change implications in the northern coastal temperate rainforest of North America

et al. 2015

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We synthesized an expert review of climate change implications for hydroecological and terrestrial ecological systems in the northern coastal temperate rainforest of North America. Our synthesis is based on an analysis of projected temperature, precipitation, and snowfall stratified by eight biogeoclimatic provinces and three vegetation zones. Five IPCC CMIP5 global climate models (GCMs) and two representative concentration pathways (RCPs) are the basis for projections of mean annual temperature increasing from a current average (1961-Climatic Change (2015 1990) of 3.2°C to 4.9-6.9°C (5 GCM range; RCP4.5 scenario) or 6.4-8.7°C (RCP8.5), mean annual precipitation increasing from 3130 mm to 3210-3400 mm (3-9 % increase) or 3320-3690 mm (6-18 % increase), and total precipitation as snow decreasing from 1200 mm to 940-720 mm (22-40 % decrease) or 720-500 mm (40-58 % decrease) by the 2080s (2071-2100; 30-year normal period). These projected changes are anticipated to result in a cascade of ecosystem-level effects including: increased frequency of flooding and rain-on-snow events; an elevated snowline and reduced snowpack; changes in the timing and magnitude of stream flow, freshwater thermal regimes, and riverine nutrient exports; shrinking alpine habitats; altitudinal and latitudinal expansion of lowland and subalpine forest types; shifts in suitable habitat boundaries for vegetation and wildlife communities; adverse effects on species with rare ecological niches or limited dispersibility; and shifts in anadromous salmon distribution and productivity. Our collaborative synthesis of potential impacts highlights the coupling of social and ecological systems that characterize the region as well as a number of major information gaps to help guide assessments of future conditions and adaptive capacity.

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Section: Implications For Freshwater Hydrology and Fishesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change implications in the northern coastal temperate rainforest of North America

et al. 2015

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“…Although headwater streams have been shown to export up to 90 % of the total annual carbon in stream systems (Leach et al, 2016), significant processing and loss typically occurs during downstream transit (Battin et al, 2008). Over much of the incised outer coast of the CTR, small rainfall-dominated catchments contribute high amounts of freshwater runoff to the coastal ocean (Royer, 1982;Morrison et al, 2012;Carmack et al, 2015). Small mountainous watersheds that discharge directly to the ocean can exhibit disproportionately high fluxes of carbon relative to watershed size and in aggregate may deliver more than 50 % of total carbon flux from terrestrial systems to the ocean (Milliman and Syvitski, 1992;Masiello and Druffel, 2001).…”

Section: Doc Export From Small Catchments To the Coastal Oceanmentioning

confidence: 99%

A global hotspot for dissolved organic carbon in hypermaritime watersheds of coastal British Columbia

et al. 2017

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Abstract. The perhumid region of the coastal temperate rainforest (CTR) of Pacific North America is one of the wettest places on Earth and contains numerous small catchments that discharge freshwater and high concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) directly to the coastal ocean. However, empirical data on the flux and composition of DOC exported from these watersheds are scarce. We established monitoring stations at the outlets of seven catchments on Calvert and Hecate islands, British Columbia, which represent the rain-dominated hypermaritime region of the perhumid CTR. Over several years, we measured stream discharge, stream water DOC concentration, and stream water dissolved organic-matter (DOM) composition. Discharge and DOC concentrations were used to calculate DOC fluxes and yields, and DOM composition was characterized using absorbance and fluorescence spectroscopy with parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC). The areal estimate of annual DOC yield in water year 2015 was 33.3 Mg C km −2 yr −1 , with individual watersheds ranging from an average of 24.1 to 37.7 Mg C km −2 yr −1 . This represents some of the highest DOC yields to be measured at the coastal margin. We observed seasonality in the quantity and composition of exports, with the majority of DOC export occurring during the extended wet period (September-April). Stream flow from catchments reacted quickly to rain inputs, resulting in rapid export of relatively fresh, highly terrestrial-like DOM. DOC concentration and measures of DOM composition were related to stream discharge and stream temperature and correlated with watershed attributes, including the extent of lakes and wetlands, and the thickness of organic and mineral soil horizons. Our discovery of high DOC yields from these small catchments in the CTR is especially compelling as they deliver relatively fresh, highly terrestrial organic matter directly to the coastal ocean. Hypermaritime landscapes are common on the British Columbia coast, suggesting that this coastal margin may play an important role in the regional processing of carbon and in linking terrestrial carbon to marine ecosystems.

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“…The reward gained in exchange for this sacrifice is maximization of the number of stream gauges incorporated into the analysis. As the density of stream gauges is extremely sparse through much of our study area (e.g., Whitfield and Spence, 2011;Morrison et al, 2012), and analysis of climatic effects is merely one of the many uses of hydrologic monitoring networks (see Sect. 1), our choice is reasonable for our current purposes.…”

Section: Study Area and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Complex network theory, streamflow, and hydrometric monitoring system design

Halverson

Fleming

2015

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Network theory is applied to an array of streamflow gauges located in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia (BC) and Yukon, Canada. The goal of the analysis is to assess whether insights from this branch of mathematical graph theory can be meaningfully applied to hydrometric data, and, more specifically, whether it may help guide decisions concerning stream gauge placement so that the full complexity of the regional hydrology is efficiently captured. The streamflow data, when represented as a complex network, have a global clustering coefficient and average shortest path length consistent with small-world networks, which are a class of stable and efficient networks common in nature, but the observed degree distribution did not clearly indicate a scale-free network. Stability helps ensure that the network is robust to the loss of nodes; in the context of a streamflow network, stability is interpreted as insensitivity to station removal at random. Community structure is also evident in the streamflow network. A network theoretic community detection algorithm identified separate communities, each of which appears to be defined by the combination of its median seasonal flow regime (pluvial, nival, hybrid, or glacial, which in this region in turn mainly reflects basin elevation) and geographic proximity to other communities (reflecting shared or different daily meteorological forcing). Furthermore, betweenness analyses suggest a handful of key stations which serve as bridges between communities and might be highly valued. We propose that an idealized sampling network should sample high-betweenness stations, small-membership communities which are by definition rare or undersampled relative to other communities, and index stations having large numbers of intracommunity links, while retaining some degree of redundancy to maintain network robustness.

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A Method for Estimating Monthly Freshwater Discharge Affecting British Columbia Coastal Waters

Cited by 64 publications

References 13 publications

Climate change implications in the northern coastal temperate rainforest of North America

Climate change implications in the northern coastal temperate rainforest of North America

A global hotspot for dissolved organic carbon in hypermaritime watersheds of coastal British Columbia

Complex network theory, streamflow, and hydrometric monitoring system design

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