Date of Award:

5-2013

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Watershed Sciences

Committee Chair(s)

Brett Roper

Committee

Brett Roper

Committee

Thomas C. Edwards Jr.

Committee

Jiming Jin

Abstract

Government agencies and private organizations spend large amounts of public money attempting to return ecosystems to a more natural state, which have often been harmed or even destroyed as a result of modern development. Colorado River cutthroat trout, Oncorhyncus clarki pleuriticus, are a subspecies of cutthroat trout. Cutthroat trout live in the Rocky Mountains of the western United States. The population of this particular subspecies has been severely reduced by human actions, and currently only 12% of its historic populations still exist. To improve the condition of cutthroat trout, fisheries professionals and biologists are working to restore natural populations. There are far more degraded fish populations than resources to restore them. This is why managers employ project prioritization, considering the many pros and cons of multiple projects before spending decisions are made. I suggest that future climate change impacts must be one of these considerations. Fish species across the world are threatened by and already reacting to climate change impacts. Some streams will warm faster than other streams. The goal of this work is to determine which characteristics will make a stream less susceptible to warming, anticipating which streams are better candidates for habitat restoration. Cooperation from the United States Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, state agencies and private landowners allowed for the collection of temperature data in cutthroat streams across the upper Colorado River basin. The relationship between air and water temperature is not linear. Characteristics that affect this relationship include air temperature, sunlight, elevation, area the water is draining from, shading from trees, groundwater input, and slope and aspect of the local terrain. A model was created that predicts the relationship between air and water temperature, based on the characteristics around the stream. Through this work, it also became clear that using multiple temperature metrics, rather than one, is much stronger in anticipating the likelihood of stream warming. The results of this work will help government employees make decisions concerning trout restoration in the Rocky Mountains.

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