Willamette River Valley Research

Topics

Ecosystem Services Research In Communities Willamette River Basin Study (2 pp, 267KB, About PDF)

Issue

EPA's Ecological Research Program (ERP) in the Office of Research and Development (ORD) is focused on the study of ecosystem services and the benefits to human well-being provided by ecological systems.

As part of this research effort, the Willamette River Basin project will identify and characterize the ecosystem services in the area. The river basin, located in Oregon between the Coast Range and the Cascase Range, is highly agricultural and has a growing population. There is considerable local interest in sustainable economic growth.

Science Objective

Willamette River Valley Research | Ecological Research Program

The research in the Willamette River Basin will strive to quantify the area's ecosystem services and understand the effect man-made stressors have on those services.

Understanding these interactions will help local decision makers understand the ecological costs and benefits of existing and proposed land management and growth policies. The study will focus particularly on maintaining and improving river conditions with targeted work on the area's riparian forests.

The goals of the initiative are to:

Identify critical knowledge gaps in the ecological processes underlying ecosystem services
Map ecosystem services in the river basin based on current conditions and available data
Quantify the response of ecosystem services to current and projected conditions and stressors
Quantify linkages and trade-offs among bundles of ecosystem services in response to land use, climate and other variables
Model the future responses of ecosystem services to probable future conditions
Determine the value of changes in ecosystem services affected by changes in Nr loads

Application and Impact

EPA scientists will develop ecosystem services maps, models, and decision support tools to help decision makers in the Willamette River Basin apply the information and methods developed by this project. Using these tools, decision makers can implement proactive policy and management decisions over time and at multiple scales. These decisions will help ensure human well-being by conserving and enhancing ecosystem services.

The most direct client will be the U.S. EPA Region 10 office in Seattle, Washington, which has regulatory authority in the Willamette River Basin. The research also will be integrated with other community-based ecosystems research being conducted in order to create a transferable suite of methods and tools for evaluating ecosystem services. This research will be applicable across other EPA regions and national program offices.

References

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis. Island Press, Washington, D.C. 2005, www.mawab.org/en/Index.aspx.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Ecological Benefits Assessment Strategic Plan. 2006, http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/eermfile.nsf/vwAN/EE-0485-01.pdf/$File/EE-0485-01.pdf (PDF) (67 pp, 1.37MB, About PDF)

Costanza, R.; d'Arge, R. R.; de Groot, R.; Farber, S.; Grasso, M.; Hannon, B; Limburg, K.; Naeem, S.; O'Neill, R.V.; Paruelo, J.; Raskin, R.G.; Sutton, P.; van den Belt, M. The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature. 1997, 387:253-260.

Hulse, D.; Gregory, S.; Baker, J. Willamette River Basin Planning Atlas: Trajectories of Environmental and Ecological Change. 2002, Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, Oregon, 178 p.

Contact

Dixon Landers, Ph.D., EPA's Office of Research and Development, (landers.dixon@epa.gov), 541-754-4427