Map: Courtesy of Bonneville Power Administration

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Map Courtesy of Bonneville Power Administration
Drainage Area 660,480 km2 Estuary Area 412 km2
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HISTORIC AND MODERNCOLUMBIA RIVER ESTUARY FOOD
WEBS
Pre-1870
Modern (1980)
PHYTO- PLANKTON
ZOO- PLANKTON
FLUVIAL INPUT
ZOO- PLANKTON
DETRITUS
PHYTO- PLANKTON
DETRITUS
73000
9000
25
146495
102
61440
EMERGENT PLANTS
EMERGENT PLANTS
5300
36205
11324
3605
19938
62629
BENTHIC ALGAE
1893
10525
?
ZOO- PLANKTON
PHYTO- PLANKTON
?
ZOO- PLANKTON
1545
ZOO- PLANKTON
DETRITUS
PHYTO- PLANKTON
BENTHIC ALGAE
ZOO- PLANKTON
DETRITUS
279
14587
1825
282
167
?
?
?
1943
?
167
?
EPI- BENTHOS
EPI- BENTHOS
BENTHOS
EPI- BENTHOS
BENTHOS
EPI- BENTHOS
34
26
355
26
OCEANIC EXPORT
80000
159185
?
?
?
?
40560
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Effects of Flow Regulation
Monthly Average Flows at The Dalles
1970-1999

• Reduced peak freshet flow by gt40
• Freshet longer and peak flow earlier
• Greatly increased fall-winter minimum flows

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Recommendations from Salmon at Rivers End

1. Monitor life-history diversity, habitat use, and
   performance of juvenile salmon
2. Protect and restore emergent and forested
   wetlands and riparian floodplains
3. Use physical observations and modeling to assess
   changes in habitat opportunity
4. Assess the effects of altered habitats and food
   webs on juvenile salmon

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Estuarine Monitoring
Salmon Abundance Life History
Beach seine (landscape scale)
Marsh trap (habitat scale)
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Salmon-Habitat Relationships
Emergent Forested Wetlands
D. Bottom, NMFS C. Simenstad, UW

• Fish abundance and life history
• Prey availability and fish food habits
• Physical attributes
• Vegetative communities

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Estuarine Monitoring and Modelling Physical
Attributes Habitat Opportunity
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Columbia River Estuary Habitat Change
Analysis
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Historic Habitat Opportunities and Food-Web
Linkages of Juvenile Salmon in the Columbia River
Estuary and Their Implications for Managing River
Flows and Restoring Estuarine Habitat
Ed Casillas, Daniel Bottom, Curtis Roegner, Kym
Jacobson, Cathy Tortorici National
Marine Fisheries Service Charles Simenstad
University of Washington Antonio Baptista, David
Jay, Todd Sanders Oregon Graduate
Institute Eric Volk Washington Department of
Fish and Wildlife
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Research Goal
Reconstruct historic changes in estuarine rearing
opportunities and food-web linkages of Columbia
River salmon and evaluate their implications for
managing river flows and restoring estuarine
habitats.
Restoration Scenarios
4. Implications for restoration?
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Historic Reconstruction

• Establish a consistent historic habitat baseline
  from the river mouth to Bonneville Dam.
• Develop baseline of aquatic, intertidal, and
  floodplain habitats from historic T-Sheet and
  H-Sheet data.
• Reconstruct historic climatic, tidal, and
  hydrologic effects on overbank flooding and
  access to floodplain.

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Simulation Modelling

• Use historic baseline to run 3-D simulations of
  habitat opportunity based on selected criteria
• --depth (0.1-2.0 m)
• --velocity (lt 30 cm/s)
• --salinity (lt 5 ppt)
• Evaluate sensitivity of habitat opportunity to
  past (1) diking filling, (2) flow regulation,
  and (3) channel deepening.

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Food-web Sources

• Characterize changes in estuarine food webs of
  salmon and the organic sources supporting them
• Stable isotopes
• --Carbon sources of different salmon life-history
  types
• --Isotopic signatures of dominant estuarine and
  freshwater prey
• --Otoliths to assess changes in prey linkages
• Parasites
• --Parasite assemblages as indicators of diet and
  habitat use
• Scale microchemistry
• --Potential for describing historic food-web
  linkages

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Restoration Scenarios

• Review results of monitoring, simulations, and
  historic analyses
• Identify alternative restoration scenarios
  (workshop).
• Construct simulation database for each scenario.
• Analyze impact of alternative scenarios for
  estuarine habitat and salmon

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