Development of a modelling framework to quantify cumulative effects of land use and climate change on juvenile Atlantic salmon

Description: This project builds upon a FCAS project entitled “Development and implementation of a modelling tool to investigate how freshwater ecosystems influence wild Atlantic salmon populations”. In this initial project, the CEQUEAU hydrological and water temperature model (St-Hilaire et al., 2015) was implemented and calibrated to generate historic and future discharge and river temperature time series in 19 Atlantic salmon rivers. In the meantime, this number has been extended to over 30 modelled rivers. Of these rivers, five were selected for the proposed project with a gradient of anthropogenic impacts: Ste-Marguerite (QC, relatively pristine), Restigouche (QC-NB, some deforestation), Ouelle (QC, agriculture and deforestation), Mill (PEI, some agriculture), and Dunk (PEI, intense agriculture) rivers. The CEQUEAU model has now been calibrated for discharge and temperature on all five rivers. Being a distributed model, CEQUEAU can provide simulated discharges and temperatures for the entire drainage basin. This offers a unique opportunity to build on the original work and 1) Compare the impact of the current land use of each river on key habitat variables, 2) Combine land use and climate change scenarios in CEQUEAU to investigate future cumulative impacts on Atlantic salmon distribution, and 3) Analyze the bioenergetic consequences of the different land use and climate change scenarios on juvenile Atlantic salmon growth and survival.