Water has been the constant thread weaving through Farrah Tyler's life – from childhood open water swimming to living near rivers throughout the country, and today, to her current graduate research. As a CalTrout Cal Poly Humboldt Graduate Fellow, working closely with Christine Davis, a Senior Project Manager in CalTrout’s North Coast Region, Farrah combines her love of nature and interest in geography and hydrology with GIS mapping technology to study and protect California's third-largest watershed, the Eel River watershed.
Her research coordinated with CalTrout’s North Coast Region focuses on identifying and protecting riparian climate refugia in the Eel River watershed – areas that are more resistant to climate change impacts – to help restore threatened salmon populations in the region. And when she’s not saving the fish? You might find her splashing through triathlon training or maintaining trails in the Rocky Mountains, activities that keep her deeply connected to the landscapes she works to protect.
CalTrout’s Communications Team was lucky enough to spend some time talking with Farrah about her Fellowship and the journey that led her to where she is today.
I grew up along the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon and had easy access to both the mountains and coast, which gave me an amazing diverse landscape to learn from. While I wasn't a boater or fisher[person], I was really interested in learning about the history of Oregon, especially the geography, geology, and hydrology of the area. I would often go to natural and culture museums with my family and the historical importance of salmon in our area was a common thread. Something that really stuck with me was learning about the importance of the fish, especially to the Indigenous people who rely on salmon to support their lives.
Being near rivers has been a constant in my life – everywhere I've lived, from Humboldt to Montana to the Wyoming, I tend to follow the water. This connection started early when I began open water swimming every summer with my dad across the Columbia River.
My academic interest in environmental and water issues took shape in high school when I became fascinated by the Klamath River dam removal project. It was exciting to see how many people were involved in facilitating such a monumental project for our region. While this was always in the back of my mind during school, I wasn't sure what path could lead me to contributing to river restoration. I ended up pursuing an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science Management with a focus in Geographic Information System (GIS). This has given me a tangible application to pursue natural resource management and has allowed me to explore different areas of the environmental sciences to integrate into my current research.
GIS is a mapping tool that helps us understand natural resources along with the built environment. We use it to visualize watersheds, analyze topography, and track stream channels. By building layers of landscape data, we can better understand everything from climate patterns to how waters flow from headwaters to estuaries. It helps bridge the gap between mapping and ecology-based science.
I discovered CalTrout during my undergrad when a peer presented her capstone project - a collaboration with CalTrout modeling climate variables for the Eel River watershed. I was immediately intrigued and asked to work with her. This led to working with the CalTrout North Coast team to develop a 30-meter ground surface temperature model for the Eel, which predicts average temperature conditions across the landscape in 30-by-30-meter cells.
Most publicly available climate data is at a much coarser resolution, generally 1-kilometer. By working at a finer scale, we can better understand microclimate effects, like the cooler, moister conditions in riparian areas along the Eel. This detailed analysis provides managers with a much clearer picture of habitat suitability and potential stressors. The more I worked with CalTrout, the more impressed I became with their data-driven approach to progressive research.
I'll be supporting efforts to recover and protect threatened salmon and steelhead populations and their habitats in the Eel River watershed, as these numbers have significantly depleted. Historically, this watershed supported combined runs of over half a million adult salmonids annually.
The Eel River Watershed and Conservation Program aims to restore and conserve habitat, with particular attention to river corridors and increasing connectivity along riparian habitat. We're integrating this research with dam decommissioning efforts. While species recovery plans are already in practice, climate change is predicted to have localized effects on the watershed, including changes in temperature and precipitation which affect hydrologic regimes. This means we need to incorporate potential riparian refugia – areas in the riparian zone that are more resistant to climate change impacts – into habitat recovery and species restoration frameworks.
Our goal is to model areas where riparian refugia currently exist. By identifying these areas, we hope to increase habitat connectivity by linking high-quality habitats, which will benefit many aquatic species and make the entire watershed more resilient.
This research is important from both a fish and environmental perspective. Just as humans can move through the landscape using roads, bikes, and planes, aquatic species are very limited in how they can access important biological resource areas for their life histories. From that perspective, it makes more sense why integrating refugia is crucial, particularly defining areas where refugia is high in the watershed - where canopy cover is intact, solar radiation is lower, ambient temperature is moderated, and there's little human disturbance to the landscape. The combination of these factors is what we use to describe refugia.
Areas of high refugia value are critical in conservation because they're already healthy and high quality, so it's important to direct conservation efforts toward protecting them. Conversely, areas of low refugia would be potentially important to prioritize for restoration. By identifying these areas and integrating data from in stream analyses, we can provide insight to land use managers and fisheries biologists where restoration and conservation efforts around water and riparian habitat will have the most potential benefit. Ultimately, this helps ensure funding is used efficiently.
Triathlon training gets me outside covering a lot of ground. I love to bike to the Mad River (Baduwa’t), which is my community gets our drinking water from. I love seeing it after it rains. Training takes me around the landscape, from the river to the ocean – it keeps me connected to the landscape.
In the summers, I work a wilderness trail crew position in the Rockies. We're dependent on local water sources on backcountry trips and plan our days around access to water. It pares things down to our simplest needs. Traversing the landscape on foot we usually follow drainages so we can filter often. It's a good reminder to remember the importance of daily resources like clean water that we take for granted. Some trail projects have taken me to headwaters in Montana and Wyoming-- it is amazing to see how rivers take form. I feel grateful for experiences like these and it motivates me to be outside any way I can.
My school triathlon team had an early season camping trip at Redwood National Park. On our way, we all jumped out and had an open water swim practice on the Eel. Early summer redwoods, ferns, riffle sand bar – just perfect. I’m sure there will be a lot of new memories when my field work kicks off this summer!
At the beginning of college, I had no idea my current job existed. I have always pursued opportunities that I feel personally connected to in environments that inspire me. This has led me to great, like-minded people, who are also deeply connected to the landscape. I also barely knew what GIS was and struggled with general computer skills. But being openminded led me to an awesome place – a place where my academic and personal interests have converged. My advice? Follow environments you love and people doing good work, and you’ll end up where you’re supposed to be.
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Peter Moyle is the Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology and Associate Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, at UC Davis. He is author or co-author of more than 240 publications, including the definitive Inland Fishes of California (2002). He is co-author of the 2017 book, Floodplains: Processes and Management for Ecosystem Services. His research interests include conservation of aquatic species, habitats, and ecosystems, including salmon; ecology of fishes of the San Francisco Estuary; ecology of California stream fishes; impact of introduced aquatic organisms; and use of floodplains by fish.
Robert Lusardi is the California Trout/UC Davis Wild and Coldwater Fish Researcher focused on establishing the basis for long-term science specific to California Trout’s wild and coldwater fish initiatives. His work bridges the widening gap between academic science and applied conservation policy, ensuring that rapidly developing science informs conservation projects throughout California. Dr. Lusardi resides at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences and works closely with Dr. Peter Moyle on numerous projects to help inform California Trout conservation policy. His recent research interests include Coho salmon on the Shasta River, the ecology of volcanic spring-fed rivers, inland trout conservation and management, and policy implications of trap and haul programs for anadromous fishes in California.
Patrick Samuel is the Conservation Program Coordinator for California Trout, a position he has held for almost two years, where he coordinates special research projects for California Trout, including the State of the Salmonids report. Prior to joining CalTrout, he worked with the Fisheries Leadership & Sustainability Forum, a non-profit that supports the eight federal regional fishery management councils around the country. Patrick got his start in fisheries as an undergraduate intern with NOAA Fisheries Protected Resources Division in Sacramento, and in his first field job as a crew member of the California Department of Fish & Wildlife’s Wild and Heritage Trout Program.