Patricia J. Wohner

and 2 more

Gravel augmentation has become a viable restoration technique below dams to replace degraded salmonid spawning habitats with high quality habitat. The technique can reduce the reliance on hatchery and trap and haul projects which have associated costs to native fish productivity. However, gravel augmentation can be cost-prohibitive while it is often unknown what stream segments have the highest potential to benefit spawning salmonids. We created Intrinsic Potential (IP) habitat models using stream attributes related to salmonid spawning habitat: elevation, width, and gradient, from the publicly available synthetic stream channel dataset NetMap. We then used the IP models to develop an easy to use, inexpensive, and flexible prioritization tool to identify high spring-run Chinook Salmon ( Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) IP ~100 m reaches. The tool has the capacity to select reaches that are also high winter Steelhead Trout ( O. mykiss) IP spawning habitats and incorporates constraints on mean August current stream temperature maxima, temperature maxima with expected future climate change, land ownership, reach access, distance to and type of gravel sources, and gravel transport potential. We explore the prioritization tool and demonstrate its use with three potential strategies for the Upper Rogue River basin: 1) Spring Chinook Salmon Strategy, 2) Winter Steelhead Trout Strategy, and 3) Climate Change Strategy. The results of the tool suggest that management priorities dictate priority stream reaches for gravel augmentation. In the three strategies we compared, a small number of reaches located downstream of current spring Chinook Salmon spawning in Shady Cove were high priority, an area already designated in the Rogue spring Chinook Salmon Conservation Plan. In strategy 2, gravel augmentation would benefit winter Steelhead Trout spawning in a small number of reaches in Evans Creek area. Under the Climate Change strategy, many reaches were identified with new permitting of other potential gravel sources. The tool is publicly available on GitHub.