columbia river
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Bulk chemical data of samples of this study and plotted in figures 5, 9, and 10.

Bulk chemical data of samples of this study and plotted in figures 5, 9, and 10.

Abstract An inversion technique was tested for estimating bathymetry from observations of surface currents in a partially-mixed estuary, Mouth of the Columbia River (MCR). The methodology uses an iterative ensemble-based assimilation scheme which is found to have good skill for recovering bathymetry from observations distributed in space and time. However, the inversion skill is highly dependent on the tidal phase, location of the observations, and flow-dependent estuary dynamics. Inversion skill was found to degrade during periods of higher river discharge (up to ~ 12,000m3), or low tidal amplitude, while inversion of depth-averaged velocities instead of surface velocities caused increased skill throughout the domain. These results point to dynamical limits on inversion skill, caused by changes in estuary dynamics that affect the sensitivity of surface velocities to bathymetry. An adjoint sensitivity analysis is used to visualize these effects and is combined with data-denial experiments to explore the flow-dependent inversion skill.

Abstract. The Columbia River Treaty (CRT) signed between the United States and Canada in 1961 is known as one of the most successful transboundary water treaties. Under continued cooperation, both countries equitably share collective responsibilities of reservoir operations, and flood control and hydropower benefits from treaty dams. As the balance of benefits is the key factor of cooperation, future cooperation could be challenged by external social and environmental factors which were not originally anticipated, or change in the social preferences of the two actors. To understand the robustness of cooperation dynamics we address two research questions – i) How does social and environmental change influence cooperation dynamics? and ii) How do social preferences influence the probability of cooperation for both actors? We analyzed infrastructural, hydrological, economic, social, and environmental data to inform the development of a socio-hydrological system dynamics model. The model simulates the dynamics of flood control and hydropower benefit sharing as a function of the probability to cooperate, which in turn is affected by the share of benefits. The model is used to evaluate scenarios that represent environmental and institutional change, and changes in political characteristics based on social preferences. Our findings show that stronger institutional capacity ensures equitable sharing of benefits over the long term. Under current CRT, the utility of cooperation is always higher for Canada than non-cooperation which is in contrast to the U.S. The probability to cooperate for each country is lowest when they are self-interested but fluctuates in other social preferences scenarios.

The details and mechanisms for Neogene river reorganization in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and northern Rocky Mountains have been debated for over a century with key implications for how tectonic and volcanic systems modulate topographic development. To evaluate paleo-drainage networks, we produced an expansive data set and provenance analysis of detrital zircon U-Pb ages from Miocene to Pleistocene fluvial strata along proposed proto-Snake and Columbia River pathways. Statistical comparisons of Miocene-Pliocene detrital zircon spectra do not support previously hypothesized drainage routes of the Snake River. We use detrital zircon unmixing models to test prior Snake River routes against a newly hypothesized route, in which the Snake River circumnavigated the northern Rocky Mountains and entered the Columbia Basin from the northeast prior to incision of Hells Canyon. Our proposed ancestral Snake River route best matches detrital zircon age spectra throughout the region. Furthermore, this northerly Snake River route satisfies and provides context for shifts in the sedimentology and fish faunal assemblages of the western Snake River Plain and Columbia Basin through Miocene−Pliocene time. We posit that eastward migration of the Yellowstone Hotspot and its effect on thermally induced buoyancy and topographic uplift, coupled with volcanic densification of the eastern Snake River Plain lithosphere, are the primary mechanisms for drainage reorganization and that the eastern and western Snake River Plain were isolated from one another until the early Pliocene. Following this basin integration, the substantial increase in drainage area to the western Snake River Plain likely overtopped a bedrock threshold that previously contained Lake Idaho, which led to incision of Hells Canyon and establishment of the modern Snake and Columbia River drainage network.