Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Arizona
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Arizona Project


Using a Mechanistic Model to Develop Management Strategies to Cool Apache Trout Streams under the Threat of Climate Change

January 2010 - October 2019


Personnel

Participating Agencies

  • Arizona Game and Fish Department

User‐friendly stream temperature models populated with on‐site data may help in developing strategies to manage temperatures of individual stream reaches that are subject to climate change. We used the field‐tested Stream Segment Temperature model (U.S. Geological Survey) to simulate how altering discharge, groundwater input, channel wetted width, and shade prevents the temperatures of White Mountain, Arizona, stream reaches from exceeding the thermal tolerance of Apache Trout Oncorhynchus apache, both under existing conditions and under a climate change scenario. Simulations suggested increasing shade, either through streamside planting of specific numbers and species of plants or by other means, would be most effective and feasible for cooling the stream reaches we studied. Ponderosa pine Pinus ponderosa and Douglas fir Pseudotsuga menziesii provided the most shade followed in order by Engelman spruce Picea engelmannii, Bebb's willow Salix bebbiana, Arizona alder Alnus oblongifolia, and finally coyote willow Salix exigua. Vegetation survival depends on the appropriateness of site conditions at present and under climate change, and planting in buffer strips minimizes additional water removal from the watershed through evapotranspiration. Alternative shading options, including thick sedge growth, shade cloth, or felled woody vegetation, may be considered when environmental conditions do not support plantings. Increasing groundwater input can cool streams, but additional sources are scarce in the region. Decreasing the width‐to‐depth ratio would succeed best on reaches with widths greater than 2.0 m. Increasing discharge from upstream may lower water temperature on reaches with an initial discharge greater than 0.5 m3/s. Existing models provide suggestions to cool stream reaches. Further development of accessible software packages that incorporate evaporation, fragmentation, and other projected climate change effects into their routines will provide additional tools to help manage climate change effects. Partners include the AZGFD. Products included a thesis and a featured article in a journal.

Research Publications Publication Date
Price Baker, J. and S. A. Bonar. 2019. Using a mechanistic model to develop management strategies to cool Apache Trout streams under the threat of climate change. North American Journal of Fisheries Management 39:849-867. September 2019
Theses and Dissertations Publication Date
Price, J. E. 2013. Potential methods to cool streams containing Apache trout in the White Mountains of Arizona and implications for climate change. MS. Thesis, University of Arizona, Tucson. May 2013