Effectiveness and Impacts of Dust Control Measures for Owens Lake (2020) / Chapter Skim
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5 Addressing Current and Future Management Challenges with a Systems Approach
5 Addressing Current and Future Management Challenges with a Systems Approach
Pages 131-142
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From page 131... ...
MANAGEMENT FOR MULTIPLE GOALS Management goals at Owens Lake have shifted substantially over time, with the evolution of regulations and societal values. In the early 1900s, the water of Owens Valley and Owens Lake was viewed by many as a resource to support the growing city of Los Angeles.
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From page 132... ...
. On Owens Lake, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife requires no net loss of aquatic habitat functions, values, and acreage, based on the 2008 dust control areas, and that 1,500 acres (2.3 square miles)
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From page 133... ...
. Management at Owens Lake over the past few decades has been primarily focused on the goal of dust control, which may have inadvertently increased these tradeoffs and limited the ability of the current patchwork of management approaches to address multiple goals.
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From page 134... ...
In the sections below, each of the principles is discussed, including how each can be addressed at Owens Lake as part of a lake-wide, integrated dust management approach. Management of Multiple Goals Balancing multiple goals at Owens Lake (e.g., goals related to dust emissions, habitat provisioning, water use, and protection of cultural resources and the viewshed)
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From page 135... ...
, including the effects of higher evaporation rates on water demand and the availability of water supplies to meet that demand under future projected conditions. In a desert landscape where all ecosystems are critically dependent on water, future planning will also necessitate an understanding of the effects of changing water application on Owens Lake habitats and implications within the larger Great Basin ecosystem and beyond.
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From page 136... ...
LADWP is studying habitat suitability, rather than species populations, because bird populations and migrations are affected by many factors that extend far beyond the geographic scope of Owens Lake. However, assessments of habitat quality based on habitat suitability models are often poorly linked to population health or performance because they fail to consider spatial variation and temporal changes in communities and environmental factors and how individual species react to multiple interacting factors (Seoane et al., 2005; Stauffer, 2002; Tirpak et al., 2009)
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From page 137... ...
are a management priority, rather than currently weighting all guilds equally, given that Owens Lake has the most potential to provide (and historically provided) habitat for the most salt-tolerant species.
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From page 138... ...
Other areas may be appropriate for a hybrid of precision surface wetting and vegetation to meet dust control requirements, with much less water use than existing managed vegetation plots. Selecting practices and goals for a dust control area that are most suitable for local conditions can be achieved by spatially explicit mapping of the key variables that shape a system.
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From page 139... ...
. Integrated planning across the extent of Owens Lake will improve the potential to achieve all goals by considering the impacts of adjacent DCMs and the size of the dust control area needed to effectively manage for fundamental processes that control the system, such as groundwater depth, salinity, and wind speed.
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From page 140... ...
Careful selection of dust control approaches on upwind adjacent patches -- for example, the use of shrubs or other roughness elements -- could decrease wind speeds at the boundary of these uncontrolled areas. It is also important to consider how management of Owens Lake interacts with the surrounding landscape.
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From page 141... ...
, including a focus on hybrid dust management approaches. Providing advice on the implementation of a long-term, integrated strategy for Owens Lake is beyond the scope of this report but could be a topic in future reports by the Owens Lake Scientific Advisory Panel.
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From page 142... ...
Such an approach also has the potential to decrease energy use and long-term maintenance costs. In addition to managing multiple goals and recognizing tradeoffs, a systems approach at Owens Lake would consider and plan for key factors that affect attainment of the goals both at individual sites and collectively.
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