NRES 701 – John Rex Speaking

October 19, 2018

“Small Streams, and Big Dreams” Watershed Management Challenges Ahead

1. What new info or knowledge did you learn from this presentation?

No mandatory buffers/reserves

Small streams :

– are numerous,

-Influence downstream condition,

-Provide migrations…

Biological contributions include lower gradient reaches important to juvenile fish, higher gradient reach support other

Collaboratively completed a Bowron River Watershed Study – the pretty black and white map of the Bowron Lake watershed area was intriguing and shows the numerous cut blocks.

Methodology section of slides were interesting points to consider for future use to measure the health of small streams.

2. Are there particular aspects of the presentation you enjoyed or intrigued you and are there others that could have been improved?

I appreciated the images and diagrams presented and the size of each made viewing easier. John is an experienced presenter who speaks softly and yet spoke with confidence. He is clear and easy to follow as an audience member.

3. Are there components of the research that would be applicable or relevant to your own Masters research?

His research may be applicable to my own if he was relating his work to Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge, or auto-ethnography. I did find his work interesting and engaging.

After seeing the slide about adaptive management, I change my original observation, the diagram of Adaptive Management may be applicable to my own master’s thesis. I will follow up on this diagram with John after this lecture.

4. How well did the speaker respond to questions and is there a question you would have asked given the opportunity?

John Rex is very comfortable as he answers questions, he remains calm and thinks before responding to questions. He takes his time responding, I believe, so that he ensures he gets his point across.

What is a natural disturbance? Landslides – and trees should be left over streams to maintain their health and ability to recover from disturbance.

How did you coordinate the set up of the sensors in the watershed areas you studied? There were so many sites with sensors. How long did it take to set up all the monitoring sites? 25 monitoring sites and a team of people helped with set up from June to July, sensors were live in August.

I liked that John was able to laugh at himself when he dropped and caught the laser pointer. It’s a reminder that no matter what, we can all keep going in our current task, no matter the set back. He didn’t make a big deal about it.

Beetle and salvage harvesting influences the forest ecology and the health of small streams. So much information was shared in this presentation that I have a hard time keeping up with John as he is speaking. I am glad that I am recording the audio for this lecture.

Wants to collaborate not because its helpful, but so that we can find a solution.

Keywords to learn more about:

Stream map test

Riparian zone

Adaptive management – for thesis.