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Forging Links in the Columbia River Estuary
CMOP's director will be presenting at The Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership's three day workshop at the Liberty Theater in Astoria, Oregon from May 28-30. The Columbia River Estuary Workshop brings together people with interest of the lower Columbia River and estuary, plume, and nearshore ocean to highlight new findings and perspectives from species recovery, restoration, research and monitoring and resulting implications
Antonio Baptista is scheduled to present during the morning session on May 28. His talk is titled "Fast prediction of river influences on the Columbia River estuary and plume, and implications for policy, adaptive management and operation." CMOP scientist Joseph Needoba is the moderator of the first session that will cover topics on the Columbia River Basin/Estuary Issues.
Abstract of Baptista Talk: We have long known that the Columbia River estuary and plume are strongly responsive to river discharges, and particularly to the hydrograph at Bonneville Dam. For two decades, we have developed long‐term observations and detailed numerical circulation models that—together— enable understanding and simulation of contemporary variability , past conditions, and future scenarios of estuarine and plume circulation, in response to the Bonneville hydrograph and other local and global forcing. We have also learned how to translate circulation conditions and changes into metrics of relevance to ecosystems and fisheries. However, only recently—while addressing the needs of the 1964 Columbia Review Treaty Review—have we beg an to use decade + legacy simulations to train fast predictors of the behavior of ecologically relevant estuarine and plume metrics. With this step, we are— within limits—no longer constrained by computationally expensive numerical simulations, for first‐order assessments of impacts in the estuary and plume from changes in select forcing types. The fast predictors are particularly effective in addressing changes in the Bonneville hydrograph, which opens substantive opportunities for science‐based adaptive management and operation of the Federal Columbia River Power System. With this presentation, we set the foundation for a broad regional conversation on these opportunities.
