The Scope of Uncertainties in River Restoration

Wheaton, Joseph M.; Darby, S. E.; Sear, David

doi:10.1002/9780470867082.ch3

Cited by 51 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…There are many different remote sensing techniques that can be combined in various ways to paint a quantitative picture of physical habitat with both topography and aerial imagery (Bangen et al , ). So long as the uncertainties in each approach are adequately represented (Wheaton et al , ; Bangen et al , ), and their significance to the analyses and questions at hand appropriately considered (Wheaton et al , ), many different approaches should apply. Our premise here was that as long as each component piece had a pragmatic way to produce the component output needed that was scientifically defensible, it would suffice towards achieving the broader integration and ultimately addressing some pressing key management questions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Upscaling site‐scale ecohydraulic models to inform salmonid population‐level life cycle modeling and restoration actions – Lessons from the Columbia River Basin

Wheaton

Bouwes

McHugh

et al. 2017

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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With high-resolution topography and imagery in fluvial environments, the potential to quantify physical fish habitat at the reach scale has never been better. Increased availability of hydraulic, temperature and food availability data and models have given rise to a host of species and life stage specific ecohydraulic fish habitat models ranging from simple, empirical habitat suitability curve driven models, to fuzzy inference systems to fully mechanistic bioenergetic models. However, few examples exist where such information has been upscaled appropriately to evaluate entire fish populations. We present a framework for applying such ecohydraulic models from over 905 sites in 12 sub-watersheds of the Columbia River Basin (USA), to assess status and trends in anadromous salmon populations. We automated the simulation of computational engines to drive the hydraulics, and subsequent ecohydraulic models using cloud computing for over 2075 visits from 2011 to 2015 at 905 sites. We also characterize each site's geomorphic reach type, habitat condition, geomorphic unit assemblage, primary production potential and thermal regime. We then independently produce drainage network-scale models to estimate these same parameters from coarser, remotely sensed data available across entire populations within the Columbia River Basin. These variables give us a basis for imputation of reach-scale capacity estimates across drainage networks. Combining capacity estimates with survival estimates from mark-recapture monitoring allows a more robust quantification of capacity for freshwater life stages (i.e. adult spawning, juvenile rearing) of the anadromous life cycle. We use these data to drive life cycle models of populations, which not only include the freshwater life stages but also the marine and migration life stages through the hydropower system. More fundamentally, we can begin to look at more realistic, spatially explicit, tributary habitat restoration scenarios to examine whether the enormous financial investment on such restoration actions can help recover these populations or prevent their extinction.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Upscaling site‐scale ecohydraulic models to inform salmonid population‐level life cycle modeling and restoration actions – Lessons from the Columbia River Basin

Wheaton

Bouwes

McHugh

et al. 2017

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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“…For both the investigator and the audience, the most important question to address is whether or not the uncertainty is significant to the question or purposes for which the HRT is being used (Wheaton et al, 2008). The type of assessment and the extent 270 to which one explores uncertainty should be driven by the research question(s)…”

Section: Sources Of Uncertainty Error Modeling and Error Propagationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Situations where simple zonal spatially uniform may suffice 455 There are a variety of situations where using a single spatially uniform value to estimate vertical surface representation errors will be overly conservative in some areas and overly liberal in other areas (Wheaton et al, 2008). A simple improvement can come from defining regions (i.e., polygons) within which it is reasonable to assume σ is constant.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…For exam- Another approach to statistical estimation of errors is bootstrapping. Using this approach, an elevation surface is built with some random fraction of the data (e.g., 90% of points) and the remaining points (e.g., 10%) 495 are used to calculate residual errors between the interpolated surface and measured points (Wheaton et al, 2008). Those residual error value points can be interpolated to approximate an error surface.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Analyzing high resolution topography for advancing the understanding of mass and energy transfer through landscapes: A review

Passalacqua

Belmont

Staley

et al. 2015

Earth-Science Reviews

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283

245

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International audienceThe study of mass and energy transfer across landscapes has recently evolved to comprehensive considerations acknowledging the role of biota and humans as geomorphic agents, as well as the importance of small-scale landscape features. A contributing and supporting factor to this evolution is the emergence over the last two decades of technologies able to acquire high resolution topography (HRT) (meter and sub-meter resolution) data. Landscape features can now be captured at an appropriately fine spatial resolution at which surface processes operate; this has revolutionized the way we study Earth-surface processes. The wealth of information contained in HRT also presents considerable challenges. For example, selection of the most appropriate type of HRT data for a given application is not trivial. No definitive approach exists for identifying and filtering erroneous or unwanted data, yet inappropriate filtering can create artifacts or eliminate/distort critical features. Estimates of errors and uncertainty are often poorly defined and typically fail to represent the spatial heterogeneity of the dataset, which may introduce bias or error for many analyses. For ease of use, gridded products are typically preferred rather than the more information-rich point cloud representations. Thus many users take advantage of only a fraction of the available data, which has furthermore been subjected to a series of operations often not known or investigated by the user. Lastly, standard HRT analysis work-flows are yet to be established for many popular HRT operations, which has contributed to the limited use of point cloud data.In this review, we identify key research questions relevant to the Earth-surface processes community within the theme of mass and energy transfer across landscapes and offer guidance on how to identify the most appropriate topographic data type for the analysis of interest. We describe the operations commonly performed from raw data to raster products and we identify key considerations and suggest appropriate work-flows for each, pointing to useful resources and available tools. Future research directions should stimulate further development of tools that take advantage of the wealth of information contained in the HRT data and address the present and upcoming research needs such as the ability to filter out unwanted data, compute spatially variable estimates of uncertainty and perform multi-scale analyses. While we focus primarily on HRT applications for mass and energy transfer, we envision this review to be relevant beyond the Earth-surface processes community for a much broader range of applications involving the analysis of HRT

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“…River managers and scientists are, therefore, faced by competing models of the importance of habitat. Structural uncertainties (see Wheaton et al 2008) such as these can only be reduced by further research or embraced by representing them explicitly in restoration plans. The latter is unpopular since it offers budget holders the excuse not to invest in restoration at all .…”

Section: Habitat Connectivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating Science and Practice for the Sustainable Management of In‐Channel Salmonid Habitat

Sear

2010

Salmonid Fisheries

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The contribution of this chapter is to consider in-channel management in relation to our evolving concepts of salmonid habitat and, in particular, our understanding of natural geomorphic processes. Thus, an initial review of current in-channel management practice is followed by a review of the conceptual basis for the management of habitats -defining and characterising habitat itself and identifying the processes necessary to support it. The chapter goes on to consider where changes in in-channel habitat management might be made in the light of our current understanding of these processes. Finally, the chapter briefly reviews the contribution that new modes of data collection and modelling can make to efforts to restore salmonid habitats and to integrate such projects within wider catchment management. Why do we manage in-channel habitat?To be successful, conservation and restoration efforts require a strong conceptual foundation and a thorough understanding of natural processes. In-channel habitat management includes those practices associated with the control of physical features and biological communities within the channel, bounded by the floodplain, whose aim is support viable populations of salmon. The reasons for such management are generally threefold. First, a river has a perceived or quantified decline in salmon population (e.g. WWF 2001). Second, there is a perceived or quantified decline in the quality or quantity of salmon habitat (e.g.Hendry & Cragg-Hine 1997); an example is the rapid infilling of adult holding pools with gravel. Third, the management regime is part of a traditional suite of practices 81 Salmonid Fisheries: Freshwater Habitat ManagementPaul Kemp

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The Scope of Uncertainties in River Restoration

Cited by 51 publications

References 70 publications

Upscaling site‐scale ecohydraulic models to inform salmonid population‐level life cycle modeling and restoration actions – Lessons from the Columbia River Basin

Upscaling site‐scale ecohydraulic models to inform salmonid population‐level life cycle modeling and restoration actions – Lessons from the Columbia River Basin

Analyzing high resolution topography for advancing the understanding of mass and energy transfer through landscapes: A review

Integrating Science and Practice for the Sustainable Management of In‐Channel Salmonid Habitat

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