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Nisqually Community Forest VELMA modeling.
Citation:
McKane, Bob, J. Halama, A. Brookes, K. Djang, B. Barnhart, P. Pettus, G. Blair, J. Hall, J. Kane, AND P. Swedeen. Nisqually Community Forest VELMA modeling. Region 10 Forest Team monthly meeting, NA, OR, January 28, 2020.
Impact/Purpose:
CPHEA/PESD Research Ecologist Bob McKane will present an invited webinar - Nisqually Community Forest VELMA modeling – for the EPA Region 10 Forest Team on January 28th. The objective is to summarize for discussion purposes the use of PESD’s VELMA ecohydrology model for quantifying effects of different forest management practices on low summer steam flow, a topic of regional concern for salmon recovery planning in Pacific Northwest watersheds. Results demonstrate VELMA’s capabilities for simulating observed long‐term daily streamflow dynamics, including peak and low flows. This webinar supports Region 10 Forest Team goals to provide a forum for Federal, tribal, state and local agencies to work collaboratively to share information, tools and resources; and to use high quality science, modeling, and staff expertise to inform forest management issues throughout the Pacific Northwest region (WA, OR, ID, AK).
Description:
This invited webinar will be presented to the EPA Region 10 Forest Team on January 28, 2020. We provide an overview of a set of forest and stream management modeling tools to support community-based forest management and salmon-recovery planning in Pacific Northwest (PNW) watersheds. As an example, we describe how these tools have been applied to the Mashel River Watershed in collaboration with the Nisqually Community Forest (NCF), whose members include local communities, the Nisqually Tribe, and others. The tools are designed to help inform plans for restoring hydrological and ecological processes critical to salmon recovery, and more broadly, to the functioning of entire watersheds and the ecosystem services they provide for local stakeholders. This webinar focuses on the EPA-NCF collaborative application of an EPA watershed simulator – Visualizing Ecosystem Land Management Assessments (VELMA) – to quantify long-term effects of alternative forest management and climate scenarios on key salmon habitat and water quality and quantity variables, especially peak and low flows. Model results illustrate how forest management favoring longer harvest intervals can significantly increase low summer stream flows, a topic of regional concern for salmon recovery planning in PNW watersheds. Note: This is re-presentation of a 2016 seminar has been shortened for discussion purposes with EPA Region 10 Forest Team members. Additional details of the original presentation are here: https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_report.cfm?Lab=NHEERL&dirEntryId=328730.