San Joaquin River Floodplain Habitat: Modeling Juvenile Chinook Salmon Needs

We applied the Emigrating Salmonid Habitat Estimation (ESHE) model to the San Joaquin River Restoration Program (SJRRP) restoration reaches to define the minimum land area required to support rearing and emigration habitat for juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha).  To accomplish this, we employed production from minimum viable population targets set for spring- and fall-run Chinook Salmon as defined in the SJRRP Fisheries Management Plan. The tasks of this study were to (1) use the best available data (San Joaquin Basin when available) to parameterize ESHE model relationships for initial timing and size, survival, growth, migration speed, and habitat requirements, and (2) use the ESHE model to estimate the suitable rearing and emigration habitat required to support future populations of San Joaquin River spring-run and fall-run Chinook salmon as they rear and emigrate downstream through the SJRRP restoration reaches.  In this presentation, we will describe some of the general assumptions of the model including, survival, growth and migration speed and results from the model’s application for the SJRRP.