Christopher P Konrad
Science and Products
USGS science supporting the Elwha River Restoration Project
The Elwha River Restoration Project...
... has reconnected the water, salmon, and sediment of a pristine river and coast of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. Coordinated by the National Park Service, restoration of the Elwha River included the removal of two large dams that had blocked salmon and sediment passage for almost 100 years. The largest dam removal in U.S. history began in...
River Corridor hot spots for biogeochemical processing: a continental scale synthesis
Rivers are the veins of the landscape, providing environmental benefits that are disproportionately high relative to their aerial extent; shedding flood waters, hosting aquatic ecosystems, transporting solutes and energy-rich materials, and storing and transforming pollutants into less harmful forms. From uplands to the coasts, rivers facilitate key biogeochemical reactions that cumulatively...
Cedar River Peak Flow Management
The Cedar River watershed provides two-thirds of the water supply for the greater Seattle metropolitan region, in addition to being home to numerous federally listed salmon species. The City of Seattle, through Seattle Public Utilities (SPU), works closely with the Cedar River Instream Flow Commission (IFC) to adaptively manage flows on the Cedar River. Seattle operates its water management...
Green River Geomorphic Responses
In the Pacific Northwest, water, sediment, and vegetation primarily determine the form of large river channels and shape their ecosystems. Dams on rivers affect all of these elements, with consequences for habitats and aquatic species. Understanding how water, sediment, and vegetation interact in habitats is key to managing rivers. In the case of the middle Green River in King County,...
Elwha River
The formerly free-flowing Elwha River was famous for the diversity and size of its salmon runs. After the construction of the Elwha Dam (1912) and the Glines Canyon Dam (1927), fish lost access to more than 70 miles of mainstem river and tributary habitat. As a result, all 10 runs of native Elwha salmon and sea-going trout declined sharply. Restoration of the Elwha River ecosystem will be...
GW/SW Interactions
Knowing the interactions of ground water and river water can help reduce the fluctuation of water supplies in alluvial (sediment-deposit) river basins.
To develop general principles of these interactions in order to identify and analyze them, the USGS is reviewing the results of the numerous studies of these interactions in Pacific Northwest basins. The review will describe common...
Methow River Basin
The Methow River Basin, located in North Central Washington in Okanogan County, is well known for its natural beauty, wildlife, outdoor recreation, and rural lifestyle. The Methow River and its tributaries are home to upper Columbia summer steelhead and spring Chinook salmon, which are both listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and bull trout, which is listed as...
Hydrologic Urban Indicators
Storm water, the rainfall that runs off urban surfaces such as rooftops, pavement, and lawns, can affect streams in a number of ways. As urban development increases, storm water can run quickly into streams, increasing the volume and peak flows and reducing summer flows. Sediment and other contaminants can also be carried into the streams.
The Washington Department of Ecology (WDOE),...
A conceptual framework for the identification and characterization of lacustrine spawning habitats for native lake charr Salvelinus namaycush
Lake charr Salvelinus namaycush are endemic to the formerly glaciated regions of North America and spawn primarily in lakes, unlike most other Salmoninae. Spawning habitats for lake charr are thought to be characterized by relatively large substrate particle sizes which provide sufficient interstitial spaces for egg incubation, but...
Riley, Stephen; Marsden, J. E.; Ridgway, M. S.; Konrad, Christopher; Farha, Steve A.; Thomas R. Binder; Trevor A. Middel; Esselman, Peter; Charles C. Krueger Estimating minimum streamflow from measurements at ungauged sites in regions with streamflow‐gauging networks
Estimation of low flows in rivers continues to be a vexing problem despite advances in statistical and process‐based hydrological models. We develop a method to estimate minimum streamflow at seasonal to annual timescales from measured streamflow based on regional similarity in the deviations of daily streamflow from minimum streamflow for a...
Konrad, Christopher Seasonal precipitation influences streamflow vulnerability to the 2015 drought in the western United States
Streamflow was exceptionally low in the spring and summer of 2015 across much of the western United States because of a regional drought that exploited the sensitivity of both snow- and rain-dominant rivers. Streamflow during 2015 was examined at 324 gauges in the region to assess its response to the amount, form, and seasonal timing of...
Konrad, Christopher An integrated framework for ecological drought across riverscapes of North America
Climate change is increasing the severity and extent of extreme droughts events, posing a critical threat to freshwater ecosystems, particularly with increasing human demands for diminishing water supplies. Despite the importance of drought as a significant driver of ecological and evolutionary dynamics, current understanding of drought...
Kovach, Ryan; Dunham, Jason B.; Al-Chokhachy, Robert; Snyder, Craig; Beever, Erik A.; Pederson, Gregory T.; Lynch, Abigail; Hitt, Nathaniel P.; Konrad, Christopher; Jaeger, Kristin; Rea, Alan H.; Sepulveda, Adam J.; Lambert, Patrick M.; Stoker, Jason M.; Giersch, J. Joseph; Muhlfeld, Clint C.
Sediment storage and transport in the Nooksack River basin, northwestern Washington, 2006–15
The Nooksack River is a dynamic gravel-bedded river in northwestern Washington, draining off Mount Baker and the North Cascades into Puget Sound. Working in cooperation with the Whatcom County Flood Control Zone District, the U.S. Geological Survey studied topographic, hydrologic, and climatic data for the Nooksack River basin to document recent...
Anderson, Scott W.; Konrad, Christopher P.; Grossman, Eric E.; Curran, Christopher A. Downstream‐propagating channel responses to decadal‐scale climate variability in a glaciated river basin
Regional climate is an important control on the rate of coarse sediment mobilization and transport in alpine river systems. Changes in climate are then expected to cause a cascade of geomorphic responses, including adjustments in downstream channel morphology. However, the mechanics and sensitivity of channel response to short‐term climate...
Anderson, Scott W.; Konrad, Christopher P. Effects of urban multi-stressors on three stream biotic assemblages
During 2014, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment(NAWQA) project assessed stream quality in 75 streams across an urban disturbance gradient within the Piedmont ecoregion of southeastern United States. Our objectives were to identify primary instream stressors affecting algal, macroinvertebrate...
Waite, Ian R.; Munn, Mark D.; Moran, Patrick W.; Konrad, Christopher P.; Nowell, Lisa H.; Meador, Michael R.; Van Metre, Peter C.; Carlisle, Daren M. Factors influencing fine sediment on stream beds in the Midwestern United States
Fine sediment (particles <2 mm in diameter) in stream beds has wide-ranging effects on hydraulics, geomorphology, and ecology and is a primary focus for stream quality management in many regions. We identify reach- and basin-scale factors associated with fine sediment in the beds of 83 stream reaches in the Midwestern United States using...
Konrad, Christopher P.; Gellis, Allen Effect of river confinement on depth and spatial extent of bed disturbance affecting salmon redds
Human impacts on rivers threaten the natural function of riverine ecosystems. This paper assesses how channel confinement affects the scour depth and spatial extent of bed disturbance and discusses the implications of these results for salmon-redd disturbance in gravel-bedded rivers. Two-dimensional hydrodynamic models of relatively confined and...
Christiana R. Czuba; Czuba, Jonathan A. ; Magirl, Christopher S.; Gendaszek, Andrew S.; Konrad, Christopher P. Assessing the influence of multiple stressors on stream diatom metrics in the upper Midwest, USA
Water resource managers face increasing challenges in identifying what physical and chemical stressors are responsible for the alteration of biological conditions in streams. The objective of this study was to assess the comparative influence of multiple stressors on benthic diatoms at 98 sites that spanned a range of stressors in an...
Munn, Mark D.; Waite, Ian R.; Konrad, Christopher P. Characterizing aquatic habitats for long‐term monitoring of a fourth‐order, regulated river in the Pacific Northwest, USA
A pragmatic approach to the long‐term monitoring of rivers leverages available information with targeted field investigations to address key uncertainties relevant to management decisions. An over‐arching management issue for many rivers is how reservoir operation affects the amount and location of in‐channel sediment and the resulting...
Konrad, Christopher P.; Burton, K.; Little, R.; Gendaszek, Andrew S.; Munn, Mark D.; Anderson, Scott W. Streambed scour of salmon spawning habitat in a regulated river influenced by management of peak discharge
In the Pacific Northwest of the United States, salmon eggs incubating within streambed gravels are susceptible to scour during floods. The threat to egg-to-fry survival by streambed scour is mitigated, in part, by the adaptation of salmon to bury their eggs below the typical depth of scour. In regulated rivers globally, we suggest that water...
Gendaszek, Andrew S.; Burton, Karl D.; Magirl, Christopher S.; Konrad, Christopher P.
Low 2015 Snowpack and River Flows Studied to Provide Insight Into Future Droughts
U.S. Geological Survey hydrologic technicians are currently taking measurements from hundreds of streams and rivers across the western United States as part of a low flow study.