Project Background and Goals
Project Background and Goals
Embedded Files
Project History
Project History
Starting in 2020, Eagle Creek resident David Bugni began to assemble a network of agencies, non-profits, industry and private landowners interested in participating in an unprecedented multi-year, Clackamas watershed-wide stream temperature monitoring effort. This resulted in a 2021 field deployment of 80 temperature sensors at sites distributed across the basin, each recording data continuously for the summer months. Notably, this first year of data collection occurred following the historic 2020 Labor Day fires (during which the Riverside and Lionshead Fires burned across approximately 25% of the watershed) and during Oregon's record-breaking June 2021 heat dome event.
In 2022, Portland State University's Geography Department became involved with the project and began to analyze the 2021 data. Additional sites were added to the 2022 and 2023 summer field deployments, for an astounding total of over 100 sites for the project's subsequent seasons of data collection.
Watershed map depicting locations of 80 stream temperature sensors deployed during the summer of 2021. Map created by David Bugni and the Clackamas River Basin Council.
In 2021, David Bugni displays the sensors, their protective housings and the various anchorage devices employed to attach the sensor assemblies to the stream bed at monitoring locations (above); Fall 2021 retrieval of deployed sensor in Wash Creek by USFS staff (below).
Project Objectives
Project Objectives
The principal goal of this study is to depict in the present day, and to project in the future, how stream temperatures within the Clackamas River Basin vary across time and space. Thermal maps will depict such changes that are easily understandable to all: from the general public to researchers. Other data, whether in tabular or graphical forms, will also be produced for those who want to use the data for other purposes, integrating other metrics, such as how these thermal regimes overlap with stream flow rates, areas with high intrinsic potential, water quality, future development, and more.
PSU Geography will produce maps incorporating the 2021 data and showing the effect of the June 2021 “heat dome”, as well as maps incorporating future estimates of stream temperature given climate change scenarios. These maps will also be included in a final report summarizing findings and recommendations, including how climate change may impact our basin’s stream temperatures.
Monitoring sites deployed for the summer of 2022 by agency or individual: BUGNI = David Bugni (individual), CWES = Clackamas County Water Environmental Services, ODFW = Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, PGE = Portland General Electric, USFS = U.S. Forest Service, USFWS = U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, USGS = U.S. Geological Survey
Management Implications
Stream temperature specifically relates to the abundance and composition of the native fish community. Knowing sources of cold water in the basin will aid in determining the likely or preferred distribution of fish during their spawning and rearing life stages. In a general sense, this information can be used to identify strategic actions to protect, enhance and restore, where possible, thermal habitat and cold-water refuges. Actions identified and implemented are important for optimal climate resiliency and stewardship for this basin, which provides drinking water for 10% of Oregon’s population and is important for salmon recovery within the Willamette River and Lower Columbia River basins. On average, rearing salmonids and other cold-water species will tend to seek out the coldest and otherwise most conducive habitat; therefore, this study will also aid in fish habitat restoration measures to allow planners to place such efforts where the fish are most likely to be, both now and in the future, thus maximizing benefit-to-costs ratios. As climate change continues, locating reliable sources of cold water (on a larger scale) will aid in developing public policy to implement protection measures to ensure, in a relative sense, that such sources will remain.
How this effort differs from previous studies
The June 2021 "heat dome", the hottest in recorded history, was captured by this temperature sensor array and is a fundamental calibration tool for predictive, climate-related studies. This has never been simultaneously captured to such a basin-wide extent, uncovering how disparate areas responded to this sudden increase in temperature. This study will incorporate other data to understand how the basin responds over time to the effects of the 2020 Riverside Fire, which affected about 138,000 acres and significantly diminished tree canopies, thus increasing stream temperatures, among other effects. We will combine this stream temperature data with a climate model of the basin, creating a more accurate predictive tool for expected changes in stream temperature over time.
Finally, this is the largest array (in terms of geographical extent and simultaneity) of stream temperature sensors that has been employed to develop the most accurate stream temperature suite of models in the basin’s history, serving as a model for the entire state.
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