Understanding how land use affects salmon, such as this Chinook on its spawning grounds, is key to effective recovery planning.

Successful recovery and management of listed fishes in the Pacific Northwest depends in part on our understanding of how land uses and habitat restoration can improve the health of riverine ecosystems and salmon populations. This includes understanding how human actions alter riverine habitat conditions, and how restoration activities benefit residency, survival, and growth of fish populations.

The research of the Ecosystem Processes Team approaches this problem along three main avenues. First, we examine effects of landscape processes upon habitat availability and productivity. Second, we evaluate links between stream ecosystem health, biodiversity, and fish populations. Third, we use detailed life-cycle modeling to help predict population and community responses to habitat degradation or restoration. These approaches provide important lessons for determining sound habitat management practices in the Pacific Northwest.

Near-term research objectives will focus on:

1. Broad-scale relationships among land uses, food webs, and fish populations.
2. Aquatic ecology and watershed-scale management practices in urban, agriculture, estuary, and other lowland systems.
3. Dynamics of floodplain ecosystems, and responses to land use or restoration actions.
4. Channel incision and restoration options in the interior Columbia River basin
5. Development of habitat-based salmon population models.
6. Effects of changes in habitat quality on salmonid abundance, movements, and survival.

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