Timothy Beechie

Timothy Beechie
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration | NOAA · Northwest Fisheries Science Center

PhD Forest Resources, MS Fisheries, BS Geology

About

141
Publications
115,926
Reads
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9,578
Citations
Additional affiliations
August 1999 - present
Position
  • Senior Restoration Ecologist
Education
October 1994 - June 1998
University of Washington
Field of study
  • Forest Resources - Hydrology
October 1988 - June 1990
University of Washington
Field of study
  • Fisheries
October 1978 - June 1983
University of Washington
Field of study
  • Geology

Publications

Publications (141)
Technical Report
Full-text available
The condition of marine riparian habitat has been recognized as a principal metric by regional habitat status and trends monitoring programs as an important indicator for threatened salmonid species that rely on nearshore habitats. These include the Salmon Habitat Status and Trends Monitoring Program (SHSTMP) that we began in 2014 (Beechie et al. 2...
Article
Full-text available
Major ecological realignments are already occurring in response to climate change. To be successful, conservation strategies now need to account for geographical patterns in traits sensitive to climate change, as well as climate threats to species-level diversity. As part of an effort to provide such information, we conducted a climate vulnerabilit...
Technical Report
Full-text available
In 2014 and 2015, we began a habitat status and trend monitoring program for the Puget Sound Chinook, Hood Canal Summer Chum, and Puget Sound Steelhead Evolutionarily Significant Units (ESUs), covering large river, floodplain, delta, and nearshore habitats. The purpose of this monitoring program is to provide consistent habitat data for evaluating...
Article
Full-text available
While numerous studies have shown that floodplain habitat complexity can be important to fish ecology, few quantify how watershed-scale complexity influences productivity. This scale mismatch complicates population conservation and recovery strategies that evaluate recovery at regional or multi-basin scales. We used outputs from a habitat status an...
Data
Habitat quantity and complexity metrics. Quantity and complexity metrics were derived from aerial imagery analysis within the survey extents for each Puget Sound watershed as shown in Fig 1. These metrics are shown in the digitized coordinate reference system (WGS 84 Pseudo Mercator) and local coordinate reference system (WGS 84 UTM Zone 10N). (XLS...
Data
Productivity rates for subyearling Chinook salmon. Puget Sound subyearling Chinook productivity rates are expressed as total subyearling per spawner (SpS), fry per spawner (FpS), and parr per spawner rates (PpS). See Fig 1 for map of large river watersheds in Puget Sound. (XLSX)
Article
Full-text available
In the Pacific Northwest, widespread stream channel simplification has led to a loss of habitat area and diversity for rearing salmon. Subsequent efforts throughout the Columbia River basin (CRB) have attempted to restore habitats altered through land development to recover imperiled salmon populations. However, there is scant evidence for demograp...
Article
Full-text available
The concept of “reciprocity” between humans and other biota arises from the creation belief of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR). The concept acknowledges a moral and practical obligation for humans and biota to care for and sustain one another, and arises from human gratitude and reverence for the contributions and...
Article
Full-text available
A key challenge in watershed restoration is identifying the appropriate assessments, data, and analyses needed to identify disrupted natural processes, lost and degraded habitats, limiting factors, and ultimately identify and design successful restoration projects. This has proven particularly challenging for large restoration programs focused on r...
Article
Full-text available
Riparian forests attenuate solar radiation, thereby mediating an important component of the thermal budget of streams. Here, we investigate the relationship between riparian degradation, stream temperature, and channel width in the Chehalis River Basin, Washington State. We used lidar data to measure canopy opening angle, the angle formed between t...
Article
Full-text available
Water temperatures fluctuate in time and space, creating diverse thermal regimes on river networks. Temporal variability in these thermal landscapes has important biological and ecological consequences because of nonlinearities in physiological reactions; spatial diversity in thermal landscapes provides aquatic organisms with options to maximize gr...
Technical Report
Full-text available
It is the statutory responsibility of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to evaluate progress toward recovery of Puget Sound Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), Hood Canal summer chum salmon (O. keta), and Puget Sound steelhead (O. mykiss), which were listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1999 and 2007 (NMFS 1999a,...
Article
Full-text available
Ecological restoration is widely practiced as a means of rehabilitating ecosystems and habitats that have been degraded or impaired through human use or other causes. Restoration practices now are confronted by climate change, which has the potential to influence long-term restoration outcomes. Concepts and attributes from the resilience literature...
Data
Interactive decision support table (DST). (XLSX)
Article
Full-text available
Identifying the relative contributions of physical and ecological processes to channel evolution remains a substantial challenge in fluvial geomorphology. We use a 74‐year aerial photographic record of the Hoh, Queets, Quinault, and Elwha Rivers, Olympic National Park, Washington, USA, to investigate whether physical or trophic‐cascade‐driven ecolo...
Article
Full-text available
Two approaches to ecological restoration planning, limiting-factors analysis and process-based restoration, are employed in efforts to recover endangered salmonid species throughout the Pacific Northwest of North America. Limiting-factors analysis seeks to identify physical limitations to fish production that may be addressed by habitat restoration...
Article
Full-text available
Stream classification provides a means to understand the diversity and distribution of channels and floodplains that occur across a landscape while identifying links between geomorphic form and process. Accordingly, stream classification is frequently employed as a watershed planning, management, and restoration tool. At the same time, there has be...
Data
Supporting text, figures, and tables for manuscript. (DOCX)
Article
Full-text available
Stream classification provides a means to understand the diversity and distribution of channels and floodplains that occur across a landscape while drawing linkages between geomorphic form and process. Accordingly, stream classification is frequently employed as a watershed planning, management, and restoration tool. At the same time, there has bee...
Article
Full-text available
Stream classification provides a means to understand the diversity and distribution of channels and floodplains that occur across a landscape while drawing linkages between geomorphic form and process. Accordingly, stream classification is frequently employed as a watershed planning, management, and restoration tool. At the same time, there has bee...
Article
Full-text available
Climate change and associated changes in streamflow may alter riparian habitats substantially in coming decades. Riparian restoration provides opportunities to respond proactively to projected climate change effects, increase riparian ecosystem resilience to climate change, and simultaneously address effects of both climate change and other human d...
Article
Full-text available
For widely distributed species at risk, such as Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.), habitat monitoring is both essential and challenging. Only recently have widespread monitoring programs been implemented for salmon habitat in the Pacific Northwest. Remote sensing data, such as Landsat images, are therefore a useful way to evaluate trends prior to...
Article
Full-text available
Prevailing theory suggests that stream temperature warms asymptotically in a downstream direction, beginning at the temperature of the source in the headwaters and leveling off downstream as it converges to match meteorological conditions. However, there have been few empirical examples of longitudinal patterns of temperature in large rivers due to...
Article
Full-text available
Stream classification provide a means to understand the diversity and distributions of channel and floodplains that occur across a landscape while drawing linkages between geomorphic form and process. Accordingly, stream classification is frequently employed as a watershed planning tool. In practice, a variety of frameworks are available to manager...
Article
Predicting effects of climate change on species and ecosystems depend on understanding responses to shifts in means (such as trends in global temperatures), but also shifts in climate variability. To evaluate potential responses of anadromous fish populations to an increasingly variable environment, we performed a hierarchical analysis of 21 Chinoo...
Article
Full-text available
Despite decades of research on wood in rivers, the addition of wood as a river restoration technique remains controversial. We reviewed the literature on natural and placed wood to shed light on areas of continued debate. Research on river ecology demonstrates that large woody debris has always been a natural part of most rivers systems. Although a...
Article
Full-text available
River restoration plans often propose multiple rehabilitation actions to address key habitat impairments, but they rarely attempt to quantify the potential benefits of alternative sets of actions for targeted biota. We use geomorphic and biological analyses to estimate restoration potential under three alternative scenarios for a 64-km section of t...
Article
Full-text available
Intact riparian ecosystems are rich in biological diversity, but throughout the world, many have been degraded. Biodiversity declines, particularly of vertebrates, have led to experimental efforts to restore riparian forests by thinning young stands to accelerate creation of large diameter live trees. However, many vertebrates depend on large diame...
Article
Full-text available
Biogenic features such as beaver dams, large wood, and live vegetation are essential to the maintenance of complex stream ecosystems, but these features are largely absent from models of how streams change over time. Many streams have incised because of changing climate or land-use practices. Because incised streams provide limited benefits to biot...
Article
[1] Based on known relationships of slope, discharge, valley confinement, sediment supply, and sediment caliber in controlling channel patterns, we developed multivariate models to predict natural channel patterns across the 674,500 km2 Columbia River basin, USA. We used readily available geospatial data sets to calculate reach slopes, 2 year flood...
Technical Report
Full-text available
A major underpinning of recovery efforts for Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) listed under the Endangered Species Act is that there is a strong relationship between freshwater habitat quantity and quality and salmon abundance, survival, and productivity in the freshwater environment. This is a major component of Endangered Species Act recovery pl...
Article
Steelhead ( O ncorhynchus mykiss ) and other P acific salmon are threatened by unsustainable levels of harvest, genetic introgression from hatchery stocks and degradation or loss of freshwater habitat. Projected climate change is expected to further stress salmon through increases in stream temperatures and altered stream flows. We demonstrate a sp...
Book
With $2 billion spent annually on stream restoration worldwide, there is a pressing need for guidance in this area, but until now, there was no comprehensive text on the subject. Filling that void, this unique text covers both new and existing information following a stepwise approach on theory, planning, implementation, and evaluation methods for...
Data
Full-text available
Quantifying the attributes of reference sites is a crucial problem in the restoration of ecosystems, driving both the evaluation of current conditions and the setting of management targets for specific points in the future. Restoration of riparian ecosystems, particularly those dominated by conifers, has become a priority because of the numerous ec...
Article
Full-text available
As demand for fresh water increases in tandem with human population growth and a changing climate, the need to understand the ecological tradeoffs of flow regulation gains greater importance. Environmental classification is a first step towards quantifying these tradeoffs by creating the framework necessary for analysing the effects of flow variabi...
Article
Full-text available
Quantifying the attributes of reference sites is a crucial problem in the restoration of ecosystems, driving both the evaluation of current conditions and the setting of management targets for specific points in the future. Restoration of riparian ecosystems, particularly those dominated by conifers, has become a priority because of the numerous ec...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction The role of restoration goals in guiding watershed assessments Assessing causes of habitat and biological degradation Assessing habitat alteration Assessing changes in biota Assessing potential effects of climate change Identifying restoration opportunities Case studies Summary References
Article
Introduction Determine overall goals and scale Who will prioritize projects? Selecting the team Prioritization approaches and criteria Completing analyses and examining rankings Summary References
Article
Introduction What is restoration? Why is restoration needed? History of the environmental movement History of stream and watershed restoration Key steps for planning and implementing restoration References
Article
Introduction Components of a comprehensive restoration program Developing proposals and evaluating projects for funding or permitting Moving from opportunistic to strategic restoration Conclusions References
Chapter
Introduction Identify the problem Assess project context Define project goals and objectives Investigative analysis Evaluate alternatives Project design Implementation Monitoring Case studies Summary References
Article
Full-text available
An important question for salmon restoration efforts in the western USA is 'How should habitat restoration plans be altered to accommodate climate change effects on stream flow and temperature?' We developed a decision support process for adapting salmon recovery plans that incorporates (1) local habitat factors limiting salmon recovery, (2) scenar...
Article
Historical reconstructions of pre-settlement landscapes and geomorphic processes in two Pacific Northwest USA river basins highlight long-term processes that constrain the potential of the modern-day riverscape, as well as an understanding of how land uses have altered today's habitats for Pacific salmon. Following retreat of the continental ice sh...
Article
Full-text available
Stream restoration, stabilization, or enhancement projects typically employ site-specific designs and site- scale habitat improvement projects have become the default solution to many habitat problems and constraints. Such projects are often planned and implemented without thorough consideration of the broader scale problems that may be contributin...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Provides tools for evaluating river restoration proposals technical merit and potential impact. Emphasis is on salmon-bearing rivers, but principles and tools have universal applicability.
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Environmental classification is a first step towards quantifying the ecological tradeoffs of flow regulation by creating the framework necessary for analyzing effects of flow variability on riverine biota. Our study presents a spatially explicit hydrogeomorphic classification of streams and rivers in Washington State, U.S.A., and investigates how p...
Conference Paper
Climate change is predicted to increase stream temperatures and shift hydrological regimes throughout the range of Pacific salmon. We assessed the vulnerability of Chinook, coho and steelhead based on exposure to predicted changes in river flows and temperatures for a suite of 1500 rivers in North American and Kamchatka. We modeled flows and temper...
Conference Paper
Changes in ocean and stream temperatures will affect the pattern of suitable habitat throughout Pacific Salmon’s range. Here we compare initial results from two methods of estimating the potential shift in the fundamental niche for Chinook Salmon. Using Pacific Rim-wide stream temperature scenarios, we first consider a simple mechanistic probabilit...
Conference Paper
On September 17 of 2011, a 2.5 year deconstruction of two long-standing, high-head dams will begin on the Elwha River of the Olympic Peninsula, Washington State. Over the past decade, a variety of ecosystem related information (e.g., fish, riparian, in-stream habitat, and stream productivity) has been collected in the Elwha River basin to establish...
Conference Paper
Estimating the total amount of habitat restoration needed to recover threatened and endangered salmon is a pressing management need. Using existing data from evaluations of watershed restoration, we estimate the average change in coho salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch and steelhead O. mykiss parr and smolt densities for common in-channel (culvert removal...
Conference Paper
Recovery of salmon populations listed under the Endangered Species Act is guided by watershed restoration plans, but agencies and restoration practitioners are asking whether predicted climate change effects on rivers should alter those plans or priorities. Answering this question is not straightforward, as predicted climate change effects vary amo...
Conference Paper
Chinook salmon display high life-history diversity and capacity for behavioral acclimation and adaptation to local conditions, allowing them to occupy a number of freshwater habitats near their thermal limits. The pattern and extent of vulnerability of Chinook to future climate change is not well understood; especially accounting for the joint effe...
Conference Paper
Quantifying the attributes of undisturbed late-successional forests is a crucial problem in the restoration and management of forest and stream ecosystems, driving both the evaluation of current forest conditions and the setting of stand management targets for specific points in the future. We identified 117 undisturbed, mature (average age = 113 y...
Conference Paper
Nearly one third of the populations of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) that once inhabited the Northwest have gone extinct during the past 200 years. Many of the remaining populations have experienced dramatic declines since that time. For example, half of the extant “evolutionarily significant units,” or ESUs, of Chinook salmon (O. tshawytscha)...
Conference Paper
Effective conservation and management of natural resources requires accurate predictions of ecosystem responses to future climate change. The future response of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) to a changing environment and continued anthropogenic disturbance is of particular interest to the public because these fish have very high economic, soci...
Article
Full-text available
Rivers and their associated floodplains are among the world's most highly altered ecosystems, resulting in billions of dollars in restoration expenditures. Successful restoration of these systems requires information at multiple spatial scales (from localized reaches to broader-scale watersheds), as well as information spanning long time frames. He...
Conference Paper
Stream management activities, even well intentioned restoration efforts, all too often degrade aquatic ecosystems. Site- and reach-scale habitat improvement projects have become the default solution to many habitat deficiencies and constraints, and are often planned and implemented without proper consideration of their landscape context, process dr...
Article
Incorporating parameter uncertainty into a Monte Carlo procedure for estimating spawning habitat capacity helped determine that spawning habitat availability is unlikely to limit recovery of six populations of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in Puget Sound. Spawner capacity estimates spanned up to four orders of magnitude, yet there was v...
Article
Full-text available
Sediment size and supply exert a dominant control on channel structure. We review the role of sediment supply in channel structure, and how regional differences in sediment supply and land use affect stream restoration priorities. We show how stream restoration goals are best understood within a common fluvial geomorphology framework defined by sed...