Thermal Refuge for Cold Water Salmonids, Bird Track Springs Restoration Project, Oregon
Project ID: 140R8120P0066
Federal Agency: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Partner Institution: University of Idaho Fiscal Year: 2020
Initial Funding: $128,221
Total Funding: $126,571
Principal Investigator: Tranmer, Tonina
Abstract:
Objectives
Monitoring and modeling at Bird Track Springs restoration site are intended to pursue the following two objectives:
- Determine the potential for hyporheic flows to provide thermal refugia after stream restoration
- Compare hyporheic flows and hyporheic induced thermal refugia between pre and post restoration channel at selected flows.
To address these objectives, this project will develop a groundwater model to quantify the subsurface flow field and thermal transport through the river corridor. The groundwater model will be coupled with a surface model as done in the paper of Benjankar et al. (2016), who used a 2-dimensional surface model to provide the water surface elevations as boundary conditions for a 3-dimensional hyporheic model. To provide the necessary data for model calibration and validation, field data will be collected and outputs from existing BoR surface water models will be used.