Necessity is the Mother of Invention

My duty is to narrow down habitat opportunity for salmon to the most critical numbers. My research on salmon has been filtered to four types, all of which inhabit our research parameters of the Columbia River estuary. Those four salmon are the chinook, sockeye, coho, and steelhead. Smoltification and adult migration are the life cycles I am most interested in because of the downstream and upstream migration, which our research boundaries affect. The critical minimums and maximums I have extracted from my research will allow analysis of data taken from a modeling system that will then generate critical available habitat opportunity for salmon. This week has been all about extracting as many numbers as possible to establish a good idea of what temperature, velocity, depth, and salinity levels are the most important for salmon survival. The importance of this project is to allow the survival of salmon generations to come in reference to hydropower management and flood control. This project being a preliminary assessment, is a start in the right direction of establishing different ways to manage our ecosystem in respects to all that inhabit this land. I look forward to next week, be sure and check back!