Water Stewardship Information Sources

Citation Carnation Creek Project
Organization FLNRO
URL https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hre/ffip/CarnationCrk.htm
Abstract/Description or Keywords In the 1960s, resource managers and land-use planners needed to base judgements on the effects of logging on fish populations from studies conducted elsewhere in North America; for example, in Oregon, Alaska, and as far away as New Hampshire. Both the forest industry and government resource agencies were concerned that these extrapolations might not lead to the most appropriate planning decisions for areas on the west coast of British Columbia. Therefore, the Carnation Creek study was initiated in order to provide fish-forestry interaction information on at least one type of drainage basin in coastal British Columbia.

Initially, the three principal objectives were:

to provide an understanding of the physical and biological processes operating within a coastal watershed;

to reveal how the forest harvesting practices employed in the 1970s and early 1980s changed these processes; and

to apply the results of the study to make reasonable and useful decisions concerning land-use management, and fish and aquatic habitat protection. Top

The project has achieved these initial goals despite the typical limitations of studies conducted only in a single watershed. Over 200 publications have been produced from Carnation Creek research. The results from this project have made major contributions to the British Columbia Coastal Fisheries-Forestry Guidelines (CFFG) implemented in 1987, the legally binding provisions for aquatic habitat protection within the British Columbia Forest Practices Code (FPC), which replaced the CFFG in 1995, and the current Forest and Range Practices Act, which is supplanting the FPC.

Research and monitoring is currently focused on determining the mechanisms, rates, and levels of natural resource recovery in a harvested coastal drainage by quantifying the long-term changes in biological and physical watershed processes as the second forest grows. Research is presently documenting the 25- to 30-year post-harvest responses to logging practices from the condition and attributes of the hydrologic regime, hillslopes, stream channel network, riparian forest (canopy closure), aquatic habitats (mainstream, tributary, and off-channel network), water temperatures, and fish populations. Key project components continue to include studies of salmon species abundance, growth, age structure, survival, and smolt production at Carnation Creek.
Information Type project
Regional Watershed Vancouver Island South
Sub-watershed if known Carnation Creek
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Project status ongoing
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