USGS Multimedia Gallery: (Video)--Rehabilitating urban streams for salmon habitat improvement, Johnson Creek Schweitzer Natural Area, Portland, Oregon

Rehabilitating urban streams for salmon habitat improvement, Johnson Creek Schweitzer Natural Area, Portland, Oregon

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[Music playing]

Faith: We're at Schweitzer Natural Area along

Johnson Creek. An area that's been

recently rehabilitated upstream, but

downstream we're looking at some of the

old urban channel that shows both

effects of agriculture and urbanization

over time. I have with me Gardner and

Janine here. And Gardner, you're

familiar with the area. What's been

some of the history on the watershed as

far as the development over time?

Gardner: Well, Johnson Creek watershed

upstream at this point is fairly highly

developed, both in urbanization as well

as agricultural impacts. A lot of the

areas along the stream historically

would have been cedar forest with a lot

of interconnected wetlands that were

connected to the channel that provided

all sorts of complex fish habitat.

Agriculture and urbanization have been

the primary impacts here, as well as

timber harvest very early on. And those

impacts have resulted in lots of

changes to the stream channel in this

area. Once of the most fundamental

changes in this area was confinement of

the channel into a straightened and

hardened channel, and this was done in

the '30's by the Works Progress

Administration, WPA.

And, you can see that here there's a

grouted stone bank, trapezoidal

channel, very straight, very

simplified. The wood's been pulled out,

the habitat has been severely degraded

for aquatic species like salmon which

we had in large numbers historically,

but in very few numbers relatively now.

So, there's been some large impacts.

Faith: So, we have some changes in the

watershed and then also, some changes

of remediate effects in the channel

itself. Janine, what's changed about

the sediment characteristics as well in this watershed?

Janine: Well, it's very common in

urbanized watersheds to see a change in

the sediment, the type of sediment in

the stream. And, in Johnson Creek in

particular, we've seen a decrease in

the coarse sediment, the gravels and

the cobbles, the bigger material, which

creates the habitat, physical habitat

for the fish. And, we've seen an

increase in the fine sediment, so the

silts and the clays, which end up as

more turbid, kind of muddy water coming

through during storm events.

Faith: So, basically, we have a very

mature, somewhat mature forest behind

us. It looks very beautiful. But yet,

you know, we have the stream channel

that's been disconnected from its

floodplain, as well as the changes

within the channel itself with the

habitat, as well as the watershed

changes in hydrology and sediment. So,

a lot of things are going on here.

[Music playing]

[End of Audio]

Details

Title: Rehabilitating urban streams for salmon habitat improvement, Johnson Creek Schweitzer Natural Area, Portland, Oregon

Description:

Faith Fitzpatrick (U.S. Geological Survey), Gardner Johnston (Interfluve, Inc.), and Janine Castro (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) discuss watershed changes associated with urbanization that have led to degraded channel conditions and altered salmon habitat.

Location: Portland, OR, Johnson Creek Schweitzer Natural Area, USA

Date Taken: 12/13/2010

Length: 2:52

Video Producer: Douglas A. Harned , National Water-Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA), USGS, North Carolina Water Science Center, Raleigh, NC

Note: This video has been released into the public domain by the U.S. Geological Survey for use in its entirety. Some videos may contain pieces of copyrighted material. If you wish to use a portion of the video for any purpose, other than for resharing/reposting the video in its entirety, please contact the Video Producer/Videographer listed with this video. Please refer to the USGS Copyright section for how to credit this video.

Additional Video Credits:

Faith Fitzpatrick: Scriptwriter, Narrator, Scientist Consultant

Gerard McMahon: Producer

Douglas Harned: Producer, Video, Editor

Alan Cressler: Video

Luke McMahon: Video

Gardner Johnston (Interfluve, Inc.)

Janine Castro (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

File Details: