DOI: 10.5061/dryad.564q7
title: Data from: Interactive influences of climate change and agriculture on aquatic habitat in a Pacific Northwestern watershed

description: Climate change and agricultural intensification are two potential
 stressors that may pose significant threats to aquatic habitats in the
 inland Pacific Northwest over the next century. Climate change may impact
 running water through numerous pathways, including effects on water
 temperature and stream flow. In certain regions of the Pacific Northwest,
 agricultural activities, such as crop production, may become more
 profitable if water projects result in more irrigation water. If so,
 riparian buffers in these areas may be converted into cropland, which may
 in turn affect aquatic habitats through increases in sediment and
 agrochemical runoff into streams. We used currently available downscaled
 temperature and hydrology data in combination with a habitat quality
 framework developed for Pacific salmon and trout (Oncorhynchus spp.) to
 predict how different levels of each stressor, alone and in combination,
 may impact aquatic habitats in an inland Pacific Northwest watershed
 dominated by high-value agriculture—the Umatilla Subbasin. We developed
 spatially explicit predictions for how changes in stream flow and water
 temperature associated with three climate change scenarios and loss of
 riparian buffers in two agricultural intensification scenarios may impact
 aquatic habitats. We also examined the cumulative effects of the
 interaction of extreme climate change and agricultural intensification
 scenarios. Our results show that all three climate change scenarios are
 expected to primarily impact aquatic habitat in the upper Subbasin. In
 contrast, agricultural intensification scenarios did not have large
 impacts on temperature, but are predicted to affect other water quality
 variables in the lower Subbasin. A moderate scenario of agricultural
 intensification had relatively little effect on aquatic habitat, whereas
 the removal of all riparian buffers in agriculturally viable areas had a
 substantially negative effect on sediment, embeddedness, and large woody
 debris in the lower Subbasin. Interactions between the most extreme
 climate change and agricultural intensification scenarios reflected a
 complementarity of effects, with climate change primarily affecting the
 upper Subbasin and agricultural intensification primarily impacting the
 lower Subbasin. This work suggests that the Umatilla Subbasin and similar
 watersheds will present a challenging habitat for warm water- and
 pollution-intolerant species in the coming century.
description: Data from: Interactive
 Influences of Climate Change and Agriculture on Aquatic Habitat in a
 Pacific Northwestern Watershed.This file contains
 reach-specific data on aquatic habitat in the Umatilla Subbasin for
 current conditions, six climate change scenarios, and two agricultural
 intensification scenarios. Variables examined include summer water
 temperature, low flow, embeddedness, fine sediment, metals in sediment and
 soils, turbidity, miscellaneous toxins in the water, dissolved oxygen,
 riparian function, and large woody debris.DeBanoetalEPASTARMasterDataFile.xlsx