Nathan Vanarendonk (Former Employee)

Historical aerial photographs, from 1937 to the present, show Skagit Delta tidal marshes prograding into Skagit Bay for most of the record, but the progradation rates have been steadily declining and the marshes have begun to erode in recent decades despite the large suspended sediment load provided by the Skagit River. In an area of the delta isolated from direct riverine sediment...

On average, the Nisqually River delivers about 100,000 metric tons per year (t/yr) of suspended sediment to Puget Sound, western Washington, a small proportion of the estimated 1,200,000 metric tons (t) of sediment reported to flow in the upper Nisqually River that drains the glaciated, recurrently active Mount Rainier stratovolcano. Most of the upper Nisqually River sediment load is...

The restoration of the Nisqually River Delta (Washington, U.S.A.) represents one of the largest efforts toward reestablishing the ecosystem function and resilience of modified habitat in the Puget Sound, particularly for anadromous salmonid species. The opportunity for outmigrating salmon to access and benefit from the expansion of available tidal habitat can be quantified by several...

Previous studies have shown that the impacts of climate change on the hydrologic response of the Skagit River are likely to be substantial under natural (i.e. unregulated) conditions. To assess the combined effects of changing natural flow and dam operations that determine impacts to regulated flow, a new integrated daily-time-step reservoir operations model was constructed for the...

Current understanding of the combined effects of sea level rise (SLR), storm surge, and changes in river flooding on near-coastal environments is very limited. This project uses a suite of numerical models to examine the combined effects of projected future climate change on flooding in the Skagit floodplain and estuary. Statistically and dynamically downscaled global climate model...

From changes in traditional foods to concerns of displacement from rising seas, this coastal community in the Pacific Northwest is assessing potential impacts to make decisions for their future.

In his In Depth News story “Warming may not swamp islands” (1 August, p. 496), C. Pala argues that “coral reefs supporting sandy atoll islands will grow and rise in tandem with the sea,” based largely on studies that showed stable Pacific-island area over recent decades (1–4). He suggests that recent land losses are driven mostly by bad choices and that islanders are being affected “for...

This article describes a pilot study evaluating the sensitivity of Indigenous community health to climate change impacts on Salish Sea shorelines (Washington State, United States and British Columbia, Canada). Current climate change assessments omit key community health concerns, which are vital to successful adaptation plans, particularly for Indigenous communities. Descriptive scaling...

The Middle Fork Nooksack River drains the southwestern slopes of the active Mount Baker stratovolcano in northwest Washington State. The river enters Bellingham Bay at a growing delta 98 km to the west. Various types of debris flows have descended the river, generated by volcano collapse or eruption (lahars), glacial outburst floods, and moraine landslides. Initial deposition of sediment...

Trochammina hadai Uchio, a benthic foraminifera native to Japanese estuaries, was first identified as an invasive in 1995 in San Francisco Bay and later in 16 other west coast estuaries. To investigate the timing of the arrival and expansion of this invasive species in Padilla Bay, Washington, we analyzed the distribution of foraminifera in two surface samples collected in 1971, in nine...

Sedimentologic analyses of 21 sediment cores, ranging from 0.4 to 9.6 m in length, reveal that the shallow geologic framework of the Skagit River Delta, western Washington, United States, has changed significantly since 1850. The cores collected from elevations of 3.94 to -2.41 m (relative to mean lower low water) along four cross-shore transects between the emergent marsh and delta...

Each year, an estimated load of 6.5 million tons of sediment is transported by rivers to Puget Sound and its adjacent waters—enough to cover a football field to the height of six Space Needles. This estimated load is highly uncertain because sediment studies and available sediment-load data are sparse and historically limited to specific rivers, short time frames, and a narrow range of...