Notes from the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center

2020 ◽  
pp. 149-180
Author(s):  
John Seibert Farnsworth
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Learning Center ◽  
North Cascades ◽  
Environmental Learning ◽  
Hydroelectric Project ◽  
The North ◽  
Hydroelectric Dam ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
World Class

This chapter presents the author's field notes from the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center. The center was built as mitigation for the environmental harm caused by the hydroelectric dam when the dam was relicensed in 1989. It was a unique idea, to mitigate environmental damage with environmental education by building a world-class field campus. The idea was supported by the National Park Service, the Forest Service, local tribes, the North Cascades Conservation Council, and the city of Seattle, which owns the hydroelectric project. The chapter then focuses on Diablo dam. The author's residency there was termed a “creative residency,” and was scheduled to last a month. During his residency, the author was able to spot a lot of birds, including white-winged scoters.

Nature beyond Solitude

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Seibert Farnsworth ◽  
Thomas Lowe Fleischner
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Santa Cruz Island ◽  
North Cascades ◽  
Environmental Learning ◽  
Hydroelectric Dam ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Field Stations

The field notes taken for this book are not only about nature, but from nature as well. The book lets the reader peer over the author'shoulder as he takes his notes. The reader follows him to a series of field stations where he teams up with scientists, citizen scientists, rangers, stewards, and graduate students engaged in long-term ecological study, all the while scribbling down what he sees, hears, and feels in the moment. The field stations are located at Hastings Natural History Reservation, studying acorn woodpeckers; Santa Cruz Island Reserve, studying island foxes; Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, hawkwatching; H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, recording a forest log for two weeks through the Spring Creek Project; and North Cascades Environmental Learning Center, which was built as mitigation for the environmental harm caused by the hydroelectric dam. The book explores how communal experiences of nature might ultimately provide greater depths of appreciation for the natural world.

Forest types of the North Cascades National Park Service Complex

1987 ◽  
Vol 65 (7) ◽  
pp. 1520-1530 ◽  
Author(s):  
James K. Agee ◽  
Jane Kertis
Keyword(s):  
Ponderosa Pine ◽  
National Park ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Silver Fir ◽  
North Cascades ◽  
Cover Type ◽  
The North ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Forest Cover Types

A forest cover type classification was developed for the North Cascades National Park Service Complex in north central Washington, U.S.A., based on 425 reconnaissance-level plots. Detrended correspondence analysis (DECORANA) was used to ordinate the data. Temperature and available moisture were identified as primary environmental gradients. Two-way indicator species analysis (TWINSPAN) was used to classify the data, resulting in eight forest cover types: ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa), whitebark pine – subalpine larch (Pinus albicaulis – Larix lyallii), mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana), Pacific silver fir (Abies amabilis), western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla), and hardwood forest. The coniferous forest cover types, with the exception of ponderosa pine, were defined to have open and closed canopy components; each cover type includes a variety of plant associations. The cover types were integrated into a geographic information system used to create a cover type map that was 85% accurate. The forest cover types of the park complex are unique not so much for within-community diversity as for the close juxtaposition of cover types with interior and coastal climatic influences.

scholarly journals Do Dams Also Stop Frogs? Assessing Population Connectivity of Coastal Tailed Frogs (Ascaphus truei) in the North Cascades National Park Service Complex

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared A. Grummer ◽  
Adam D. Leaché
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
De Novo ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Population Connectivity ◽  
North Cascades ◽  
Ascaphus Truei ◽  
The North ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Skagit River

AbstractWe investigated the effects of three hydroelectric dams and their associated lakes on the population structure and connectivity of the coastal tailed frog, Ascaphus truei, in the North Cascades National Park Service Complex. Three dams were erected on the Skagit River in northern-central Washington state between 1924 and 1953 and subsequently changed the natural shape and movement of the Skagit River and its tributaries. We collected 183 individuals from 13 tributaries and generated a dataset of >2,500 loci (unlinked SNPs) using double digestion restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (ddRADseq). An analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) identified ~99% of the genetic variation within groups, and the remaining variation among groups separated by dams, or the Skagit River. All populations exhibited low FST values with a maximum of 0.03474. A ‘de novo’ discriminant analysis of principal components revealed two populations with no geographic cohesiveness. However, testing groups that were partitioned a priori by the dams revealed distinctiveness of populations down-river of the lowest dam. Coalescent-based analyses of recent migration suggest that up to 17.3% of each population is composed of migrants from other populations, and an estimation of effective migration rates revealed high levels of migration heterogeneity and population connectivity in this area. Our results suggest that although the populations down-river from the lowest dam are distinguishable, a high level of A. truei population connectivity exists throughout the North Cascades National Park Service Complex.

Accreted Terranes of the North Cascades Range, Washington: Spokane to Seattle, Washington, July 21–29, 1989

10.1029/ft307 ◽  
1989 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. W. Tabor ◽  
R. A. Haugerud ◽  
E. H. Brown ◽  
R. S. Babcock ◽  
R. B. Miller
Keyword(s):  
North Cascades ◽  
The North ◽  
Accreted Terranes

INCORPORATION OF METASEDIMENTARY UNITS INTO THE DEEPEST EXPOSED LEVELS OF THE NORTH CASCADES CONTINENTAL ARC: COMPARISON OF THE SKAGIT AND SWAKANE GNEISSES

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten B. Sauer ◽  
◽  
Stacia M. Gordon ◽  
Robert B. Miller ◽  
Jeffrey Vervoort ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Cascades ◽  
The North ◽  
Continental Arc

scholarly journals A new approach to mapping landslide hazards: a probabilistic integration of empirical and physically based models in the North Cascades of Washington, USA

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (11) ◽  
pp. 2477-2495
Author(s):  
Ronda Strauch ◽  
Erkan Istanbulluoglu ◽  
Jon Riedel
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Approach ◽  
Joint Probability ◽  
North Cascades ◽  
Physically Based Model ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The North ◽  
Debris Avalanches ◽  
Landslide Hazards ◽  
Infinite Slope Stability Model ◽  
Physically Based

Abstract. We developed a new approach for mapping landslide hazards by combining probabilities of landslide impacts derived from a data-driven statistical approach and a physically based model of shallow landsliding. Our statistical approach integrates the influence of seven site attributes (SAs) on observed landslides using a frequency ratio (FR) method. Influential attributes and resulting susceptibility maps depend on the observations of landslides considered: all types of landslides, debris avalanches only, or source areas of debris avalanches. These observational datasets reflect the detection of different landslide processes or components, which relate to different landslide-inducing factors. For each landslide dataset, a stability index (SI) is calculated as a multiplicative result of the frequency ratios for all attributes and is mapped across our study domain in the North Cascades National Park Complex (NOCA), Washington, USA. A continuous function is developed to relate local SI values to landslide probability based on a ratio of landslide and non-landslide grid cells. The empirical model probability derived from the debris avalanche source area dataset is combined probabilistically with a previously developed physically based probabilistic model. A two-dimensional binning method employs empirical and physically based probabilities as indices and calculates a joint probability of landsliding at the intersections of probability bins. A ratio of the joint probability and the physically based model bin probability is used as a weight to adjust the original physically based probability at each grid cell given empirical evidence. The resulting integrated probability of landslide initiation hazard includes mechanisms not captured by the infinite-slope stability model alone. Improvements in distinguishing potentially unstable areas with the proposed integrated model are statistically quantified. We provide multiple landslide hazard maps that land managers can use for planning and decision-making, as well as for educating the public about hazards from landslides in this remote high-relief terrain.

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