A Multi-Scale Approach for Predicting River Temperatures and Thermal Habitats.

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The goal of my NSERC Discovery programme is to advance our knowledge of river ecosystems through a better understanding of temperature and how it creates and sustains aquatic habitats. My long-term objectives are to identify the spatial features that best predict river temperatures and then link the predicted temperature to habitats for biota in the river. My work uses varied types of images collected at different wavelengths from satellites, aircraft, and drones to map landscape and riverscape features such as hills and valleys, stream channels, and in-river water temperatures, depths and flows. The next 5 years of my NSERC Discovery Grant builds on my current working hypotheses that we can predict the spatial pattern of river temperatures (its thermal regime) from landscape characteristics, we can model a river ecosystem from its thermal regimes, and we can predict the potential impacts of changing land uses and climate on river ecosystems. My short-term objectives are: 1) to improve our current models with advanced image acquisition and processing and statistical approaches; 2) to predict where and when in-river features such as temperature anomalies are actual habitats for biota by using hyperspectral image applications (coupled with biological data); and, 3) to continue building applications based on these remotely-sensed data to predict the impacts of changing landscapes and climate for river ecosystems, i.e., decision making tools for resource planners and managers. My research unravels the links from landscapes to temperature to aquatic habitats for fish and other biota in rivers. As our understanding improves, I am beginning to better predict how human activities impact river ecosystems directly, e.g., changes in landscapes such as forestry practices as well as indirectly via climate change.