Watershed-scale effectiveness of floodplain habitat restoration for juvenile coho salmon in the Chilliwack River, British Columbia

作者：Ogston Lindsey; Gidora Sam; Foy Matthew; Rosenfeld Jordan^*

来源：Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 2015, 72(4): 479-490.

DOI：10.1139/cjfas-2014-0189

Although billions of dollars have been spent restoring degraded watersheds worldwide, watershed-scale studies evaluating their effectiveness are rare. To mitigate damage from past logging activities, the floodplain of the upper Chilliwack River watershed (similar to 600 km(2)) was extensively restored from 1996 to 2000 through off-channel habitat restoration. The contribution of restored habitat to watershed-scale production of wild coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch) smolts was estimated through an extensive mark-recapture program in 2002. 27%-34% of the production of the estimated 247 200 out-migrating coho smolts could be attributed to the 157 000 m(2) of newly created habitat. Area-based habitat models from the literature performed reasonably well in predicting smolt production from restored habitat, providing an acceptable first-order approach for evaluating production benefits of restoration. The costs of smolt production integrated over 30 years ranged from US$0.69-US$10.05 per smolt, falling within the range of hatchery production costs reported elsewhere (typical cost of similar to US$1.00 per smolt) at the most cost-effective restoration sites. This study demonstrates that large-scale habitat restoration can effectively enhance fish production at a watershed scale, at a cost that may be comparable to hatchery smolt production.

• 出版日期2015-4