Publications

Back to Upcoming Brown Bag

Brown Bag Seminars
 

December 2007

Thursday, December 18, 2007

Charlie Luce will talk about the influence of climate & recent fires on streamflows within the Boise River.  Abstract

Jim McKean will talk about the potential for climate to alter winter floods and stream bed mobility at spring Chinook spawning sites in Middle Fork Salmon River tributaries.  Abstract

Dan Isaak will talk about the effects of recent fires and climate trends on changes in the distribution of thermal habitats suitable for bull trout within the Boise River basin.  Abstract

January 2008

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Dr. Christopher Cuhaciyan is a post-doctoral researcher with the University of Idaho working with Charlie Luce here at the RMRS. Christopher will give a talk titled "Hydrogeomorphic characterization and classification of Pacific Northwest mountain streams for biomonitoring." Here is a brief overview of the Dr. Cuhaciyan's talk:

Dr. Cuhaciyan will present his work using geospatial data to derive process-based hydrologic and geomorphic metrics for characterizing watershed- and valley-scale influences on stream habitats in Oregon and Washington mountains. These metrics are used to develop physical classifications of streams with relatively homogenous aquatic insect assemblages that better reflect landscape-scale habitat patchiness. The seminar will focus on:

• developing multi-scale, geo-spatially derived descriptors of watersheds and stream valley segments;

• constructing innovative models for predicting median channel substrate size (D50) and stream geomorphic type using geospatial data;

• comparing non-geographic hydrologic and geomorphic classifications of mountain streams to common geographic classifications (e.g., ecoregions) for biomonitoring; and

• using classification trees to optimize hydrogeomorphic classifications of mountain streams for biomonitoring.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Nichols, J. D., and B. K. Williams. 2006. Monitoring for conservation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 21(12):668-673.

Lovett, G. M., and coauthors. 2007. Who needs environmental monitoring? Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 5(5):253-260.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Millar, C. I., N. L. Stephenson, and S. L. Stephens. 2007. Climate change and forests of the future: managing in the face of uncertainty. Ecological Applications 17(8):2145-2151.

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Bisbal, G. A. 2001. Conceptual design of monitoring and evaluation plans for fish and wildlife in the Columbia River ecosystem. Environmental Management 28(4):433-453.

February 2008

Thursday, February 14, 2008

McDonald, L. L., and coauthors. 2007. Research, monitoring, and evaluation of fish and wildlife restoration projects in the Columbia River basin: lessons learned and suggestions for large-scale monitoring programs. Fisheries 32(12):582-590.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Kohn, M J., M. P. McKay, and J. L. Knight. 2005. Dining in the Pleistocene-who's on the menu? Geology 33:649-652.

Zanazzi, A., M. J. Kohn, B. J. McFadden, and D. O. Terry Jr. 2007. Large temperature drop across the Eocene-Oligocene transition in central North America. Nature 445:639-642.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

The Evolution of the Digital Watershed, or What Will We Do with All These Data?

Abstract .-Advances in remote sensing technology are affording scientists the opportunity to inventory river networks with sub-meter accuracy over very large areas. These data and the tools used to collect them are revolutionizing large-scale monitoring efforts and will likely influence trends in the application of the scientific method to watershed science. As data from tools such as LiDAR become readily available, physical scientists and biologists are being confronted with several questions concerning the use of such data. Principal among these is whether these data should be used primarily to address uncertainties inherent in field-based data (i.e., can we do what we’ve been doing, better?) or do these very high-resolution datasets allow us to tackle previously unanswerable questions about physical process and the interactions between the physical and biological components of an ecosystem? The transition to a "digital watershed" would enable scientists and natural resource managers the unprecedented ability to explore the interaction of physical and biological processes and management activity at the watershed scale (i.e., "digital adaptive management"). However, there are several unknowns that must be addressed during the transition. These include 1) how do we establish the precision and accuracy of these high-resolution digital data?; 2) how do we meld highly accurate digital data with locally precise field-based measurements?; 3) will these data require more sophisticated statistical analysis or can we move from sample- to population-based inferences?; and 4) will these data enable us to move beyond static maps of habitat quality and distribution into increasingly complex, but realistic, models of watershed process?

March 2008

Thursday, March 6, 2008

We will continue our round table discussion of the potential of high-resolution digital data in physical and ecological watershed research. We will begin the hour with short presentation describing LiDAR. We will spend the balance of the hour discussing this and other tools. This session is a continuation of last week's fun and stimulating discussion. Please bring your lunch.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Le Pichon, C., and coauthors. 2006. A spatially explicit resource-based approach for managing stream fishes in riverscapes. Environmental Management 37(3):322-335.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Summary of this week's discussion:

GRAIP and the Digital Watershed, Tom Black, USDA Forest Service, RMRS

Forest roads create a number of problems for managed watersheds including increases in fine sediment delivery, increases in mass wasting events, and decreases in habitat connectivity. Traditionally these problems have been documented on maps and in notebooks and analyzed by examining the density of the road network or other basic metrics. The Geomorphic Roads Analysis and Inventory Package (GRAIP) is a tool that combines a detailed GPS road inventory with a GIS model to make predictions about the environmental impacts of roads. This approach produces site specific predictions of sediment delivery to the channel network, and the risk of gully and landslide initiation. GRAIP provides high spatial resolution in its location of road impacts as well as a comprehensive inventory of the extent of the road engineering problems in a watershed. GRAIP provides a system for analyzing many of the externalities of roads in a GIS framework. I will present a brief overview of how GRAIP data are acquired and processed and will review the range of outputs that are produced. Following this I would like to discuss how GRAIP fits into our concept of a digital watershed, how do we make the best make use of spatially explicit road sediment production and delivery predictions, and how do we decide where to begin collecting this data and how to sub-sample most efficiently?

GRAIP Website

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Summary of this week's discussion:

One model of scientific inquiry goes like this: a question of scientific interest or importance could be answered with data about variable X. The scientists designs and builds a tool to measure the variable, then publishes the results. Following this format science is question-driven, rather than tool-driven. However, large-scale monitoring of habitat or populations, as well as decision-support applications often stimulates the creation of tools to collect data without the scientific context provided by a specific hypothesis.

Last week Tom Black presented an overview of the Geomorphic Road Analysis and Inventory Package or GRAIP. This tool integrates comprehensive road inventories with information on information on the hydrology of the surrounding landscape and can display myriad pieces of information within a GIS. Our discussion this week will explore a critical compliment to GRAIP: how do we crosswalk the data collected using this tool with process-based geomorphological and hydrologic models to understand how roads can alter these processes and how do we validate management decisions about road removal and rehab based on GRAIP data? Questions like these are pertinent for any scientist attempting to balance the direction of their research program with the delivery and application of their research results to managers and policy makers.

Please bring your lunch and join us for a round-table discussion about the dichotomy between scientific investigation and application and how might scientists more efficiently balance question-driven research and expectations of funding sources and the public in the future.

April 2008

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Grimm, V. 1999. Ten years of individual-based modelling in ecology: what have we learned and what could we learn in the future? Ecological Modelling 115:129-148.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Daniele Tonina, a post-doc at the lab, will be discussing some of the research on which he has been working.

USDA Forest Service - RMRS - Boise Aquatic Sciences Lab
Last Modified:  Tuesday, 09 February 2010 at 18:52:55 EST