The Willamette River Basin supports 70% of Oregon’s population and contains the richest native fish fauna in the state, (Hulse, Gregory, & Baker, 2002). The Basin is facing changes that stress its water management regimes. Is the Basin’s water management regime able to adapt in the face of these changes?...
The widespread fragmentation, channelization, and simplification of river ecosystems has had acute environmental impacts, including degradation of water quality and habitat and biodiversity loss (Vörösmarty et al., 2010). These concerns have incited an increased focus on reestablishing ecological and hydrogeomorphological functions and improving habitat that has been lost in riverine...
Oregon has already experienced the impacts of climate change, and these impacts are expected to become increasingly severe and varied. In response, the State of Oregon has taken a number of actions to adapt to changing conditions, including coordinated planning approaches to climate change adaptation. However, climate change adaptation actions...
In watersheds across the American Pacific Northwest, changes in the cultural and regulatory landscape have increased pressure to restore and protect populations of anadromous fish. But restoration of anadromous fish populations constitutes a ‘wicked problem’, relentless in character, affecting diverse stakeholder groups, and defying ‘once and for all’ solutions (Weber...
Oregon’s coast draws millions of visitors every year to witness the natural wonders of one the world’s most vibrant and publicly accessible areas where mountain forests meet sandy beaches and the sea. Communities along the Oregon coast are restricted to narrow stretches of developable land overlying sand deposits between the...
Globally, as surface water quality and quantity diminishes there is increasing reliance on groundwater to buffer water demands of growing populations. Today in many arid regions around the world aquifer pumping rates far exceed recharge rates. Often the groundwater is nonrenewable, or thousands of years old. Despite the known hydrologic...