Summary of ISAB Reviews 1996-2006

[This collection is a subset of the full ISAB library.]

Over the past decade the ISAB has completed 52 reports responding to the ISAB's primary objectives and tasks. Although the majority of ISAB assignments have been on mainstem passage issues for anadromous salmonids, the ISAB's body of work has addressed most key issues in the Columbia River Basin and informed the development of the Council's program and NMFS's recovery efforts. Some key contributions of ISAB reports are summarized here.

State of the Science Reviews

The Council's 2000 Fish and Wildlife Program directs the Council to work with the ISAB to develop a series of reports to survey past research and summarize the state of the science in key areas — "State of the Science" reviews. Although many ISAB reviews have been specific to the programs of the Council and/or NMFS, most reviews apply to crosscutting or state of the science issues spanning programs and legal mandates including those of the Tribes. When the ISAB completed its review of harvest management in 2005, it essentially had completed major reviews of the key scientific issues that basin programs have focused on, i.e., the all Hs (hydro, hatcheries, harvest, and habitat). In addition to the harvest review (ISAB 2005-4), the ISAB has completed comprehensive reviews of the potential effects of supplementation practices on salmon recovery (ISAB 2003-3), tributary habitat recovery strategies (ISAB 2003-2), flow augmentation (ISAB 2003-1), salmon recovery strategies/plans (ISAB 2001-7), and mathematical modeling and analytical tools (ISAB 2001-1, 470k PDF).

In 2006, with the ISAB's comprehensive evaluations of key scientific issues up-to-date, the Board's effort has focused on issues that have received less attention in program planning. Specifically, the ISAB is conducting reviews of how to best incorporate current scientific understanding of climate change and human population growth in fish and wildlife management planning.

Council's Fish and Wildlife Program

The ISAB and its predecessor the Independent Scientific Group have played a key role in the iterative development of the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program. A major contribution of the Independent Scientific Group, with further refinement by the ISAB, was the 1996 report Return to the River (ISG 1996, updated in 2000, and published in 2006 by Elsevier Academic Press). In the report, the Independent Scientific Group developed a conceptual foundation based on the premise that an ecosystem with a mix of natural and cultural features can sustain a broad diversity of salmon populations in the Columbia River Basin. This and other findings of the ISAB (ISAB 1998-6) provided some of the underpinnings for the region's multi-species framework effort used to inform the Council's 2000 FWP amendment process. The ISAB has also reviewed elements of the 2000 Program including the program's artificial production policies (ISAB 2000-3, 70k PDF) and scientific principles and biological objectives (ISAB 2001-6).

Several ISAB reports influenced the development of the Council's 2003 Mainstem Amendments. Specifically, the ISAB reviewed the Council's commissioned report on the status of mainstem passage strategies (ISAB 2002-1). This review gave the Council confidence in understanding the current state of the science and attendant uncertainties, specifically the ISAB emphasized the need to better understand the effects of load following. In addition, ISAB reports on the effects of the operations of Hungry Horse and Libby reservoirs on resident and anadromous fish informed the development of the program (ISAB 97-3) and subsequent approaches to implement the Mainstem Amendments (ISAB 2004-2). The ISAB's report highlighted the likely measurable effects of operations on resident fish and the difficulty of measuring the impact on migrating salmon.

The ISAB and ISRP jointly reviewed the set of plans for 58 subbasins (ISRP&ISAB 2004-13). This review helped the Council develop a program adoption strategy and identify plans that were based on the best available science and thus ready for adoption, as well as plans that needed additional work. The review also identified that most plans needed improvement in the area of integrating artificial production and habitat restoration activities. The Council has taken action on this subject through its Artificial Production Review Evaluation and basinwide objective (All-H Analyzer, ISRP&ISAB 2005-5) efforts in 2004 and 2005.

Finally, the Council has developed a draft Research Plan that relies on findings from ISAB, ISRP, and ISG reports to identify key uncertainties facing fish and wildlife resource management in the Columbia River Basin. The ISAB and ISRP have iteratively reviewed plan drafts resulting in significant revisions (ISRP&ISAB 2005-20).

NMFS's Recovery Science Analyses

The ISAB has served an important role for NMFS in peer reviewing its analytical approaches for developing biological opinions and recovery plans. For development of the 2000 Biological Opinion for the FCRPS, the ISAB reviewed NMFS's analysis of basinwide modeling efforts (ISG 1996, updated in 2000, and published in 2006 by Elsevier Academic Press) and NMFS's Cumulative Risk Initiative (ISAB 99-7).

The ISAB has also reviewed NMFS Technical Recovery Team draft analyses for developing recovery plans (ISAB 2003-4) and provided advice on evaluating the viability of Evolutionarily Significant Units that contain hatchery and natural or resident and anadromous populations (ISAB 2005-2). In the latter review, the ISAB recommended that, "Evaluation of ESU viability should rest not only on the numbers of component populations or on the abundance and productivity of those individual populations, but also should be based on the population dynamics within the ecosystem as a whole. This concept of ESU viability does not tolerate the loss of either the anadromous or resident life history form from any given ESU, because that loss would represent a loss in diversity for the ESU that would put its long-term viability at risk."

These and other ISAB reports form a body of work that has been directly applied to refinement and development of regional programs, study designs, analytical approaches, and public understanding.