Citation:

Mckane, Bob, B. Barnhart, J. Halama, P. Pettus, A. Brookes, Joe Ebersole, K. Djang, G. Blair, J. Hall, J. Kane, P. Swedeen, AND L. Benson. Nisqually Community Forest VELMA modeling. 2016 South Sound Science Symposium, Olympia, Washington, September 20, 2016.

Impact/Purpose:

This invited presentation for the South Sound Science Symposium, organized and hosted by Puget Sound tribes, describes a collaborative effort to transfer EPA’s VELMA watershed simulation model to the Nisqually Tribe and associated community groups. The goal of this transfer is to assist these stakeholders in managing the recently established Nisqually Community Forest (NCF). The NCF is a first-ever attempt to link Puget Sound salmon recovery with community-owned and managed forest lands. EPA has calibrated and tested VELMA for current and potential future NCF lands, and has begun training the NCF Board of Directors in the use of VELMA for formulating community-based best management practices that sustainably support local forest-sector jobs, healthy fish and wildlife populations, downstream water quality for human use, carbon sequestration, recreation, tourism and cultural pursuits.

Description:

We developed a set of modeling tools to support community-based forest management and salmon-recovery planning in Pacific Northwest watersheds. Here we describe how these tools are being applied to the Mashel River Watershed in collaboration with the Board of Directors of the Nisqually Community Forest (NCF). The tools are designed to help inform restoration of hydrological and ecological processes critical to salmon recovery, and more broadly, to the functioning of entire watersheds and the ecosystem services they provide. Tools include a watershed simulator – VELMA (Visualizing Ecosystem Land Management Assessments) – to quantify long-term effects of alternative forest management and climate scenarios on key salmon habitat and water quality variables, including peak and low flows, in-stream wood, fine sediment in spawning beds, and riparian condition. Stream temperature will be simulated using a version of VELMA that incorporates a new land-surface irradiance model (Penumbra) that simulates effects of shading by riparian vegetation and topography. VELMA-Penumbra stream habitat outputs are being used to drive the EDT (Ecosystem Diagnosis and Treatment) fish habitat model to simulate habitat potential and salmon population responses to the forest management and climate scenarios. VISTAS, a 3-D data visualization tool (Cushing et al. 2009), is being used to summarize and communicate model outcomes in an intuitive way. Training workshops are underway to transfer these tools to the NCF Board to assist with several goals:• Identification of sensitive habitats (e.g., cold water refuges) for prioritizing new NCF acquisitions.• Formulation of community-based best management practices that sustainably support local forest-sector jobs, healthy fish and wildlife populations, downstream water quality for human use, carbon sequestration, recreation, tourism and cultural pursuits.• Development of long-term management strategies for mitigating and adapting to impacts of climate change. For example, where and what kinds of in-stream, riparian and upland restoration practices will be most effective in coming decades for improving cold water refuges, spawning and rearing habitat, and hydrologic flow regimes (higher summer flows and lower peak flows)?

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