River Recovery Potential of streams in the Middle Fork John Day Watershed, eastern Oregon USA

The Middle Fork John Day River (MFJDR) in eastern Oregon is an Intensively Monitored Watershed and is part of habitat status and trend monitoring through the Columbia Habitat and Monitoring Program (CHaMP). The Middle Fork John Day Watershed (MFJDW) supports Chinook salmon and steelhead, and numerous river restoration projects have been undertaken in the watershed to improve channel and riparian habitat. 

The MFJDW was the focus of a complete geomorphic assessment using the River Styles framework®. The River Styles framework employs a hierarchical scheme of river assessment that is “nested” on the scale of regional, watershed, river reach, geomorphic unit, and habitat or hydraulic unit features. This approach also encompasses the ecological setting at every scale of analysis. The River Styles framework includes four stages that build one upon the next, and and culminate in what can be used as a template for a strategic river management plan. 

We present three datasets representing Stages 1-3 of the River Styles framework as watershed-scale maps in the context of of the NHD (version 1, cartographic) streamline network. 

The thrird dataset shows River Recovery Potential throughout the Middle Fork John Day Watershed defined for ephemeral, intermittent and perennial streams. Geomorphic recovery potential is defined in the River Styles framework as “…the capacity for improvement of the geomorphic condition of a reach in the next 50-100 years” (Brierley and Fryirs, 2005). Geomorphic condition (see companion dataset posted here) explains the contemporary state of reaches throughout a watershed and provides insight into their evolution, but does not examine or predict what changes may occur in the future. The ability to predict future change leverages information obtained in the river styles classification and geomorphic condition assessments, and is accomplished by analyzing the recovery trajectory of each reach—is the reach Intact, requiring restoration to improve, in a degraded state, or possibly poised to become a created river style? Secondly, river recovery potential is determined by assessing limiting factors in the watershed along with catchment position and proximity to intrinsic pressures.