The Umatilla River Vision, developed under guidance of the Umatilla Tribe’s First Foods Concept, defines a functional river as a dynamic environment that incorporates and expresses ecological processes that continue the natural production of First Foods.
Alluvial valleys are diverse centers of physical and biological complexity that moderate river water temperature within the Columbia River basin; making them key to a functional river and a driving force to the ecological processes.
This project works to identify alluvial valleys across the interior basins of the Columbia River and describe how valley morphology and hydrologic regime interact to determine the character and magnitude of temperature influence on the river channel, and use this understanding to predict……
1) The potential distribution of Chinook and Summer Steelhead.
2) How different alluvial valley forms will influence the resilience of water temperature in response to climate change.
The outputs from this project are particularly relevant to the habitat restoration efforts undertaken by the Umatilla Tribes across their ceded rivers.
Lessons Learned to Date….
- Hyporheic exchange can influence the average channel temperature in alluvial rivers.
- Subtle variations in floodplain topography drive hydrologic gradients that influence Hyporheic exchange.
- Residence time distributions govern the release of water (upwelling) from the Hyporheic zone.
- Both shade and Hyporheic exchange influence channel water temperatures- floodplain shade, away from the channel, may influence the heat transfer to the alluvial aquifer.
Get the Code
This link opens the Montana State Fluvial Landscape Lab GitHub site in a new tab.