The bad: Fall storms continue to hammer the Pacific Northwest, leaving 100,000 Oregonians in the dark and producing isolated incidents of flooding from northern California to western Washington. The good: Salmon like water. But how much is too much? New research published by the journal GlobalChange Biology provides a glimpse of how salmon rivers might fare in a future with an increased likelihood of floods.

The study, led by Wild Salmon Center science director Dr. Matthew Sloat, in collaboration with US Forest Service researchers, examines new climate patterns in southeast Alaska and their potential effects on salmon watersheds.

Sloat and colleagues looked at the impact floods could have on salmon spawning. They found that as much as 16 percent of the spawning habitat for coho salmon could be lost by the 2080s if wet and wild climate predictions prevail. But losses were predicted to occur primarily in narrower, steeper streams that provide moderate quality habitat and, to a lesser extent, in higher quality low-gradient floodplain habitats.

The study also shows that the overall risk of flood impacts to salmon reproduction in southeast Alaska is much lower than was first thought. That’s because of the relatively pristine condition of the area’s rivers and floodplains. Intact floodplains help minimize adverse impacts to salmon populations because they allow large floods to spread out over valley bottoms.

“Our results identify key parts of watersheds that, if protected, will continue to buffer salmon populations from flood disturbance in the future,” Sloat says. “We have been addressing this issue in southeast Alaska but the same tools can be used in the lower 48 and elsewhere. The real take-home message from this work is that protecting intact rivers, especially areas with functioning floodplains, is one of the key elements for sustaining salmon in the future.”

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Tom Bie
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Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

Category: Daily Drake
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Author: Tom Bie

Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

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