IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecomod/v407y2019ic7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Changes in streamflow and water temperature affect fish habitat in the Athabasca River basin in the context of climate change

Author

Listed:
  • Morales-Marín, L.A.
  • Rokaya, P.
  • Sanyal, P.R.
  • Sereda, J.
  • Lindenschmidt, K.E.

Abstract

Changes to natural flow and air temperature in the context of climate change can have impacts on physiology, distribution and survival of fish. Of particular interest is the Athabasca River basin, a highly biologically productive basin that includes one of the largest boreal freshwater inland river deltas in the world and serves as habitat for many fish species. Earlier melt events, higher winter and spring flows and lower summer flows are expected as a consequence of climate change in this basin. Here, we model changes in river flow and water temperature under changing climate scenarios through the integration of a physically-based semi-distributed hydrological model and a 1D stream water temperature model forced by climate change scenarios. The modeled changes in streamflow and water temperature are used to predict changes in habitat suitability for the Athabasca Rainbow Trout (ART) (Oncorhynchus mykiss), a unique ecotype of trout considered as a ‘species at risk’. The results indicate that future flow decreases in most of the basin can lead to reduced flow velocities and water depths making current ART habitat suboptimal. Also, warming low-land habitats and increasing water temperatures will increase metabolic rates and stress fish forcing them to migrate upstream to cooler waters confining their habitat range.

Suggested Citation

  • Morales-Marín, L.A. & Rokaya, P. & Sanyal, P.R. & Sereda, J. & Lindenschmidt, K.E., 2019. "Changes in streamflow and water temperature affect fish habitat in the Athabasca River basin in the context of climate change," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 407(C), pages 1-1.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:407:y:2019:i:c:7
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2019.108718
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304380019302182
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2019.108718?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rajesh R. Shrestha & Jennifer C. Pesklevits, 2023. "Reconstructed River Water Temperature Dataset for Western Canada 1980–2018," Data, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-12, February.
    2. Xia, Rui & Zou, Lei & Zhang, Yuan & Zhang, Yongyong & Chen, Yan & Liu, Chengjian & Yang, Zhongwen & Ma, Shuqin, 2022. "Algal bloom prediction influenced by the Water Transfer Project in the Middle-lower Hanjiang River," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 463(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:407:y:2019:i:c:7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/ecological-modelling .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.