Final Exam Study Questions for EESC 313 Management of Forested Watersheds (UBCO Course)

What is a Watershed?

An area that is bounded by topographic features that drain water into a shared destination, such as a river, stream, pond, lake or wetland. Watersheds capture, store and release water. Watersheds are natural units that can be used to monitor processes and ecosystem functionality.

What is the Tree-Water-Fish ecosystem approach discussed in class?

This is a concept that refers tot he connectivity of trees, water and fish in a watershed ecosystem context. if you take this approach, you are looking at the synergies that exist between these components as they relate to factors such as:

Turbidity, Temperature, Dissolved Oxygen, Flow Regime, Substrate Composition, Cover, and Species Access.

What are some advantages to a Watershed Approach of forest and ecosystem management?

1. Watersheds serve as natural units, so they are ideal for monitoring change

2. This approach gives a greater understanding of overall processes.

3. Encourages collaboration and integration between agencies and stakeholders

4. Using this approach can help to determine and analyze cumulative effects.

What Ecosystem Properties are we generally concerned with in forested watershed management?

In an ecosystem, we usually care about:

1. The structure

2. Dynamics and Variability: So like, Disturbances and Recovery

3. Resilience and Thresholds: Tipping Points!!!!!!

4. Linkages and Complexities

What are some Impediments/Challenges to a Watershed approach?

1. Management and Policy Challenges: government terms only last around 3-5 years, but we need long term management and regulation.

2. Boundary difficulties: Watersheds regularly transcend political boundaries.

3. External Issues: external factors, such as climate change, extreme precipitation and inter-watershed transfer can influence water quality but cannot be controlled within the watershed context.

From a philosophical perspective, where are we currently in the management of forested watersheds? (Hint, there are three options)

Options are: Fragmented Water Perspective, One Water Perspective, Watershed Ecosystem Perspective. We are at the Fragmented Water Perspective stage, where we have multiple organizations looking at and managing individual parts of a watershed ecosystem. The best would be a Watershed Ecosystem Perspective.

In Watershed Management, what is the Multiple Use Concept?

This refers to the management of various natural resource products or product combinations on a particular watershed. so it accounts for multiple projects working or using the same resource on the same watershed, resulting in cumulative effects. The relationship of these several natural resource products to one another can be complementary, supplementary, or competitive.

What is the Hierarchy Theory in a watershed approach to management of forested watershed resources?

this theory has 3 components:

1. Decomposable" structure

2. Slower behavior at higher levels

3. Discontinuities are common (organizational, spatial and temporal scales)

What are the six attributes of a resilient watershed ecosystem?

1. Diversity

2. Connectivity

3. Modularity

4. Memory

5. Feedback

6. Openness.

Why is a watershed approach to management useful? How does it work?

watershed approach systematically support management and protection of water, aquatic habitat, biodiversity, Indigenous values and other ecological and social-economic function

when it comes to watershed planning, what are some things it should aim to do? what 3 major sets of elements should it involve?

good watershed planning should integrate, science, policy and public participation into water management. The three major sets of elements planning should include are:

1. Objectives (based on problem analysis)

2. Constraints (Budget, biophysical restrictions, etc...)

3. Techniques

what are some of the types of watershed planning approaches:

Top-Down - Government oriented, effective planning but difficulty implementing

Bottom-Up - planning is ineffective often but can be great for public and indigenous participation.

Integrated - best

What are some issues surrounding planning of watershed management that have been arising?

1. Fragmented agency and authorities

2. lack of integrated planning framework exists

3. sometimes, an agencies role in the planning process can be unclear.

4. science and technology shortcomings.

What are the 10 watershed lessons to take away from watershed planning?

1. The best plans have clear visions, goals and action items

2. Good leaders are committed and empower others

3. Having a coordinator at the watershed level is desirable

4. Environmental, economic, and social values are compatible

5. Plans only succeed if implemented

6. Partnership equal power

7. Good tools are available

8. Measure, communicate, and account for progress•

9. Education and involvement drive action

10. Build on small successes

Why is watershed restoration in BC so critical?

40% of provincial forests have been harvested under logging practices in the past, and most of the productive, low-land streams have been logged to their stream banks

riparian areas have lots of important functions - LWD inputs, Bank Stability, Shade, Organic inputs, filtering, flood relief.

What are some of the objectives of watershed Restoration?

Watershed Restoration is the process of returning a damaged watershed ecosystem to a close approximation of its condition prior to disturbance- Although restoration can be used as an effective tool to return a damaged system to a pre-disturbance condition, it is also an important tool for preventing environmental degradation.- In many cases, restoring an ecosystem to an early pristine condition would be impossible- Restoration is an integral part of a broad, watershed-based approach for achieving water resource management objectives

****List some Restoration Techniques: ****

1. Fish access: Log/debris jam removal, Debris/rockslide removal, Restoring access at culverts

2. Stream Banks: Rock method, Vegetative method, Integrated method

3. Large Woody Debris and Boulder Complexes.

4. Channel Restoration

5. Pool-Riffle Reconstruction

6. fish passage restoration

7. Riparian Restoration: long term, planting, thinning and brushing.. key to integrate with other approaches.

8. Off-Channel Habitats (like mission creak)

What is Watershed Assessment?

A process of evaluating how well a watershed is working. this process should ideally include: steps for identifying issues, examining the history of the watershed, describing its features, and evaluating various resources within the watershed

what are some key features of a Watershed Assessment (Things it should include)?

- Problems and specific purposes

- An integrative nature: partnership and inter-

disciplines

- Indicators: responsive and responsible, measurable

- Integration method: scoring, GIS, models

- Scales: spatial and temporal

- Assessment results for decision making or actions

- The most challenging task is integration

What are the 6 components of the Watershed Assessment Procedure (WAP)

1. Watershed Advisory Committee (technical group)

2. Compilation of existing information

3. Field assessment: peak flow and hydrological recovery; sediment source survey; reconnaissance channel assessment procedure; riparian assessment

4. Watershed report card: a tabular summary of the filed assessment results

5. Watershed report: a comprehensive report by the hydrologist

6. Forest development plan recommendations

What is Low Impact Development? (LID)

LID is an innovative storm water management approach with a basic principle that is modeled after nature: manage rainfall at the source using uniformly distributed decentralized micro-scale controls.

LID's goal is to mimic a site's predevelopment hydrology by using design techniques that infiltrate, filter, store, evaporate, and detain runoff close to its source

Ex: Bioretention, infiltration trench, storm water wetlands.

what is the interaction between ground water and surface water?

One Water Approach:

recharge and discharge processes. contamination of one affects the other!!

what are the three research methods for One Water:

Water Balance

Chemical Tracing

Numerical Modeling

What is Mountain System Recharge? (MSR)

the major source of recharge to the valley center within mountainous terrain in arid and semiarid areas. Mountain Block recharge and Mountain Front Recharge.

define what the Hyporheic Zone is and why it is important.

hyporheic zone is a region beneath and lateral to a stream bed where there is mixing of shallow groundwater and

surface water

Importance: Important for surface water/groundwater

interactions, fish spawning, areas of intensive nitrogen and carboncycling, Buffering changes of water temperature

Why take an integrated approach to watershed management?

Because water is involved in everything. Major resource is water, water connects things, environments, ecosystems, etc...

Because Water is an ecosystem linker, IWM is required for research and management.

Our fragmented responsibilities (different ministries, governments, jurisdictions) are against this kind of approach, or make it difficult.

What is an Ecosystem anagement approach and what is an Adaptive Management approach

Ecosystem management: Integrating scientific knowledge of ecological relationships within a complex sociopolitical and values framework towards the general goal of protecting native ecosystem integrity over the long term

This is too broad to be applied - who has the mandate and resources to implement this?

Adaptive Management: the idea that we never know enough, and are constantly monitoring and learning. 6 components: 1. Identifying issues → 2. design → 3. implementation → 4. monitoring → 5. evaluation → 6. Adjustment

***What are the 5 components of integrated watershed management?

1. Integrated basin-wide law and policy (Policy)

2. Empowered Governance Model (organizational 3. collaboration and participation, GOVERNANCE)

3. Improved basin-wide science (Science)

4. Financial Mechanism ($$)

5. Integrated information (Data Network)

What are some best management practices for forested watersheds under climate change?

1. Pre-harvest planning: How much you are supposed to harvest, where?

2. Streamside management: Buffer zone, annual flow width and protection areas.

3. Forest Wetlands protection: Wetlands have buffering capacity to reduce sediments by storing them. We need to protect them/avoid constructing roads through wetlands,

4. Road construction and maintenance: correct culvert replacement, can cause sediment, runoff, compaction, etc...

5. Timber harvesting: what kind of equipment should we use? What kind of logging, cost and impact, etc.. also the time of year to harvest

6. Re-vegetation

7. Fire management

8. Restoration