Browsing by Author "Molina, Nancy"
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Item Combining and aggregating environmental data for status and trend assessments: challenges and approaches(Springer, 2015) Maas-Hebner, Kathleen G.; Harte, Michael; Molina, Nancy; Hughes, Robert M.; Schreck, Carl; Yeakley, J. AlanIncreasingly, natural resource management agencies and nongovernmental organizations are sharing monitoring data across geographic and jurisdictional boundaries. Doing so improves their abilities to assess local-, regional-, and landscape-level environmental conditions, particularly status and trends, and to improve their ability to make short-and long-term management decisions. Status monitoring assesses the current condition of a population or environmental condition across an area. Monitoring for trends aims at monitoring changes in populations or environmental condition through time. We wrote this paper to inform agency and nongovernmental organization managers, analysts, and consultants regarding the kinds of environmental data that can be combined with suitable techniques and statistically aggregated for new assessments. By doing so, they can increase the (1) use of available data and (2) the validity and reliability of the assessments. Increased awareness of the difficulties inherent in combining and aggregating data for local-and regional-level analyses can increase the likelihood that future monitoring efforts will be modified and/or planned to accommodate data from multiple sources.Item A Review of Urban Water Body Challenges and Approaches: (1) Rehabilitation and Remediation(Taylor & Francis, 2014-01-24) Hughes, Robert M.; Dunham, Susie; Maas-Hebner, Kathleen G.; Yeakley, J.Alan; Schreck, Carl; Harte, Michael; Molina, Nancy; Shock, Clinton C.; Kaczynski, Victor W; Schaeffer, JeffWe review how urbanization alters aquatic ecosystems, as well as actions that managers can take to remediate urban waters. Urbanization affects streams by fundamentally altering longitudinal and lateral processes that in turn alter hydrology, habitat, and water chemistry; these effects create physical and chemical stressors that in turn affect the biota. Urban streams often suffer from multiple stressor effects that have collectively been termed an “urban stream syndrome,” in which no single factor dominates degraded conditions. Resource managers have multiple ways of combating the urban stream syndrome. These approaches range from whole-watershed protection to reach-scale habitat rehabilitation, but the prescription must be matched to the scale of the factors that are causing the problem, and results will likely not be immediate because of lengthy recovery times. Although pristine or reference conditions are far from attainable, urban stream rehabilitation is a worthy goal because appropriate actions can provide ecosystem improvements as well as increased ecosystem service benefits for human society.Item Scientifically Defensible Fish Conservation and Recovery Plans: Addressing Diffuse Threats and Developing Rigorous Adaptive Management Plans(Taylor & Francis, 2016) Maas-Hebner, Kathleen G.; Schreck, Carl B.; Hughes, Robert M.; Yeakley, J. Alan; Molina, NancyWe discuss the importance of addressing diffuse threats to long-term species and habitat viability in fish conservation and recovery planning. In the Pacific Northwest, USA, salmonid management plans have typically focused on degraded freshwater habitat, dams, fish passage, harvest rates, and hatchery releases. However, such plans inadequately address threats related to human population and economic growth, intra- and interspecific competition, and changes in climate, ocean, and estuarine conditions. Based on reviews conducted on eight conservation and/or recovery plans, we found that though threats resulting from such changes are difficult to model and/or predict, they are especially important for wide-ranging diadromous species. Adaptive management is also a critical but often inadequately constructed component of those plans. Adaptive management should be designed to respond to evolving knowledge about the fish and their supporting ecosystems; if done properly, it should help improve conservation efforts by decreasing uncertainty regarding known and diffuse threats. We conclude with a general call for environmental managers and planners to reinvigorate the adaptive management process in future management plans, including more explicitly identifying critical uncertainties, implementing monitoring programs to reduce those uncertainties, and explicitly stating what management actions will occur when pre-identified trigger points are reached.Item Urban and rural-residential area land uses in Oregon: a synthesis of an IMST technical workshop on watershed functions and salmonid recovery(2012-06-13) Hughes, Robert M.; Kaczynski, Victor; Molina, Nancy; Schreck, Carl; Shock, Clint; Yeakley, J. AlanOn June 21-22, 2011, the Independent Multidisciplinary Science Team (IMST) hosted a technical workshop for local and regional natural resource managers and practitioners in urban and rural-residential land uses. The purpose of the workshop was to discuss management and rehabilitation actions in developed areas that could improve watershed functions, aquatic habitats, and salmonid populations. This workshop was designed to follow up and expand on key findings from IMST’s 2010 report titled Urban and Rural-residential Land Uses: Their role in Watershed Health and the Rehabilitation of Oregon’s Wild Salmonids Workshop invitees, representing municipal, county, and state agencies, non-governmental organizations, and universities, were selected to reflect experience in managing, monitoring,and/or rehabilitating salmonid and aquatic habitats in urban and rural-residential areas. Invitees were also chosen to represent the varied geographic areas in Oregon.The findings from the workshop are intended to help the State of Oregon and local governments better understand the technical issues regarding, and impediments to implementing, plans for minimizing development impacts on water quality, watershed hydrology, and aquatic ecosystems.Item Urban and rural-residential land uses : their role in watershed health and the rehabilitation of Oregon's wild salmonids(2010-12-31) Harte, Michael; Kaczynski, Vic; Shock, Clinton; Yeakley, Alan; Hughes, Robert M.; Molina, Nancy; Schreck, CarlUrban areas currently cover a small fraction of Oregon’s landscape but will expand to accommodate an increasingly large proportion of the state’s growing population and economic activity. Residential developments on rural lands now cover more than twice the area occupied by Oregon’s urban developments and are growing rapidly. Oregon urban and rural-residential developments are frequently located along streams, rivers, estuaries, and coasts. Associated landscape alterations in these areas can impair aquatic ecosystems in a variety of ways. In the Pacific Northwest, there is a growing understanding that aquatic habitat affected by development is important for salmonid populations. This technical report by the Independent Multidisciplinary Science Team (IMST) is a comprehensive review of how human activities in urban and rural-residential areas alter watershed functions, aquatic ecosystems, and the potential implications for salmonid recovery in Oregon. The report focuses on the effects of urban and rural-residential development on Oregon’s watersheds and native wild salmonids; actions that can be used to avoid or mitigate undesirable changes to aquatic ecosystems near developed areas; actions that could facilitate the recovery of salmonid populations in areas affected by development; and the effectiveness of salmonid habitat rehabilitation actions within established urban and rural residential areas.