“You don’t know what you don’t know.”
At The Freshwater Trust (TFT), we understand that the problems facing freshwater ecosystems will not be solved by one person or by one organization. We don’t always have the answer, but rather than seeing that as a problem, we see that as an opportunity – who might have the answer, and how can they join us at the table?
Evelyn Cheng, an Ecosystem Services Analyst at TFT, had been working to develop a web-based application to support the United States Forest Service (USFS). USFS engaged TFT to help determine where their money could be used most effectively to help lower temperatures in the Rogue River basin.
Much of the Rogue and its tributaries lack healthy streamside forests, causing the water to warm and impacting the species calling it home. There is also a dearth in large wood and side channels, which means less habitat in places fish need it most. Since 2012, TFT has worked alongside local partners like USFS to solve these problems by planting thousands of native trees and shrubs, and replacing wood where it would naturally accumulate. TFT has also improved water quality by preventing cattle from having direct access to creeks and streams.
“The temperatures in the Rogue River — and many Wild and Scenic Rivers in the United States (US) — are too high for fish to survive or be healthy, so we have been working with the USFS to discover which actions are best for restoring them to conditions that are better for fish,” said Cheng. “I had been working mostly on the modeling and data analysis side of things, and then Will and I started building a web application which displays those model results in a way that natural resource managers can see where their restoration dollars could be most efficiently spent.”
Will Carter, a data visualization developer from Colorado, was introduced to TFT and Evelyn through the non-profit Metropolitan Family Service (MFS) Social Purpose Works, which recruits and matches talented pro bono professionals and highly skilled volunteers with short-term, high-impact, capacity-building projects for Oregon and Southwest Washington nonprofits.
