NOAA Fisheries Adds Five Pacific Northwest Salmon Runs To Overfished List; Cites Warmer Ocean, Drought
August 8th, 2019
Three runs of Pacific Northwest coho salmon and two runs of fall chinook have been added to the overfished list in NOAA Fisheries 2018 Report to Congress on the Status of U.S. Fisheries.
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Study: Consecutive Snow Drought Years In Inland Northwest, Cascades Will Become More Common, Reservoir Managers Will Need To Adapt
August 8th, 2019
Consecutive low snow years may become six times more common across the Western United States over the latter half of this century, leading to ecological and economic challenges such as expanded fire seasons and poor snow conditions at ski resorts, according to a study.
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Managing Drought: Oregon Study Says Water Conservation Often Does Not Occur In Right Places At Right Times
July 15th, 2019
In Oregon’s fertile Willamette River Basin, where two-thirds of the state’s population lives, managing water scarcity would be more effective if conservation measures were introduced in advance and upstream from the locations where droughts are likely to cause shortages, according to a new study.
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Study: Future Heavy Precipitation In Western North America Will Come From ‘Atmospheric Rivers,’ Warm Storms With High Snow Levels
July 15th, 2019
A new study led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego suggests that a new regime of wet and dry extremes is emerging in California and that the projected bolstering of extreme precipitation is likely to be caused by streams of moisture in the sky known as atmospheric rivers (ARs).
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Study: As Regional Climate Warms, Smallmouth Bass Will Encroach On Much More Salmonid Spawning, Rearing Habitat
July 11th, 2019
Nearly 18,000 river kilometers (11,185 miles) of Columbia River basin streams currently has suitable habitat for an invasive predatory fish that, as climate warms, is a range that is predicted to increase by 10,000 river miles by 2080, according to a recent study.
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California’s Massive Tree Die-Off Caused By Deep-Soil Water Depletion; Climate Change To Amplify Ground Moisture Overdraft
July 2nd, 2019
A catastrophic forest die-off in California's Sierra Nevada mountain range in 2015-2016 was caused by the inability of trees to reach diminishing supplies of subsurface water following years of severe drought and abnormally warm temperatures.
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Park Service Approves Plan To Purge Non-Native Fish In Montana’s Upper Camas Drainage; Will Restock Native Cutthroat, Bull Trout
June 26th, 2019
The National Park Service has approved a plan to purge non-native fish in Glacier National Park’s Upper Camas Basin with a fish toxin, followed by efforts to re-stock the lakes with native westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout.
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California Department Of Fish And Wildlife Documents Drought Impacts To Fish, Aquatic Species
June 25th, 2019
One silver lining to emerge from the severe drought that impacted California earlier this decade was that it whetted an appetite to study the event and compile data designed to help fish and aquatic species better weather future droughts.
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Oregon State Researchers Offer New Strategies For Managing Rivers, Preserving Freshwater Biodiversity As Climate Warms
June 20th, 2019
New strategies for river management are needed to maintain water supplies and avoid big crashes in populations of aquatic life, researchers argue in a perspective piece published this week in Nature.