Throughout many of the world’s mountain ranges snowpack accumulates during the winter and into the spring, providing a natural reservoir for water. As this reservoir melts, it fills streams and recharges groundwater for over 1 billion people globally. Despite its importance to water resources, our understanding of the storage capacity...
Spatial patterns of summer streamflow in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon vary dramatically between the geologically distinct High and Western Cascade regions. A key control is the partitioning of water input between a fast-draining shallow subsurface flow network (Western Cascades) versus a slow-draining deeper groundwater system (High Cascades). These differences...
A key challenge for resource and land managers is predicting the consequences of climate warming on streamflow and water
resources. During the last century in the western United States, significant reductions in snowpack and earlier snowmelt have led
to an increase in the fraction of annual streamflow during winter and...
Quaking aspens (Populus tremuloides Michx.) are found in diverse habitats throughout North America. While the biogeography of aspens' distribution has been documented, the drivers of the phenotypic diversity of aspen are still being explored. In our study, we examined differences in climate between northern and southwestern populations of aspen, finding...
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T. Greer1,2, Christopher Still1,2, Glenn T. Howe1, Christina Tague3 & Dar A. Roberts2
1Forest
Quaking aspens (Populus tremuloides Michx.) are found in diverse habitats throughout North America. While the biogeography of aspens' distribution has been documented, the drivers of the phenotypic diversity of aspen are still being explored. In our study, we examined differences in climate between northern and southwestern populations of aspen, finding...
Quaking aspens (Populus tremuloides Michx.) are found in diverse habitats throughout North America. While the biogeography of aspens' distribution has been documented, the drivers of the phenotypic diversity of aspen are still being explored. In our study, we examined differences in climate between northern and southwestern populations of aspen, finding...
Headwater streams in the Oregon Coastal Range are subject to drastic fluctuations in flow and temperature because of the changing seasonality of a Mediterranean climate. In response to these changes, stream fishes exhibit a variety of movement patterns. Coastal Cutthroat Trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii clarkii) have evolved an assortment of life...
As managers of agricultural and natural resources are confronted with uncertainties in global change impacts, the complexities associated with the interconnected cycling of nitrogen, carbon, and water present daunting management challenges. Existing models provide detailed information on specific sub-systems (e.g., land, air, water, and economics). An increasing awareness of the...
Consistent with its charge under Oregon House Bill 3543, the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute (OCCRI) conducts a biennial assessment of the state of climate change science, including biological, physical, and social science, as it relates to Oregon and the likely effects of climate change on Oregon. This sixth Oregon...
This study investigates the effect of projected temperature increases on maritime mountain snowpack in the McKenzie River Basin (MRB; 3041 km(2)) in the Cascades Mountains of Oregon, USA. We simulated the spatial distribution of snow water equivalent (SWE) in the MRB for the period of 1989-2009 with SnowModel, a spatially-distributed,...
The basaltic landscapes of the Oregon High Cascades form a natural laboratory for examining how geologic setting and history influence groundwater flowpaths, streamflow sensitivity to climate, and landscape evolution. In the High Cascades, highly permeable young basaltic lavas form extensive aquifers. These aquifers are the dominant sources of summer streamflow...
Climate change is expected to have both direct and indirect effects on water
resources. Hydrologic impacts of two indirect effects, vegetation density and stomata!
conductance, are evaluated for the American River, a 200 km² watershed in the
Cascade Range of Washington state. First, a set of distributed hydrology-biogeochemistry
model structures...
Field studies in watershed hydrology continue to characterize and catalogue the enormous heterogeneity and complexity of rainfall runoff processes in more and more watersheds, in different hydroclimatic regimes, and at different scales. Nevertheless, the ability to generalize these findings to ungauged regions remains out of reach. In spite of their...
Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx) is a species with high phenotypic plasticity and a broad distribution that, in the last decade, has experienced climate stress-induced mortality called Sudden Aspen Decline (SAD). In order to help mitigate the effects of SAD in the future, we need a better understanding of aspen’s...
Potential water scarcity and drought conditions are predicted in and around Eugene, Oregon due to decreased snowpack and subsequent decreased snowmelt in the Western Cascade Mountains. This phenomenon was triggered by a long-term trend of warmer winters scientifically linked to global climate change patterns (Dalton et al. 2013). Numerous stakeholders,...
Streams across the western United States are impaired from human alterations that have reduced freshwater habitat by simplifying channel complexity and disconnecting floodplains (Knox et al., 2022; Waples et al., 2008; Wohl, 2014). Climate change is likely to continue exacerbating these risks by warming summer surface stream temperatures (Crozier et...
The working hypothesis for this study is that the introduction of GIS technology into the ancient procedures of map-making has changed the map-making context sufficiently to require a revision of the way we think about, learn from, and use maps, specifically in the public involvement process in natural resource management....
Many home users nowadays use various smart devices to improve the efficiency and convenience of their home environments. Trigger-action platforms such as “If-This-Then-That” (IFTTT) enable end users to connect different smart devices and services using simple apps to control these devices and automate the tasks (e.g., if the camera detects...
Natural resource management and policy is ideally informed by the best available science. Natural resource researchers ideally participate in broader impacts activities to extend the reach of their best available research. However, there are many cultural, institutional, and practical barriers to participating in broader impact activities and to incorporating science...