[Odonata-l] drought areas in US

[Dave McShaffrey]

Drought is a problem for sure, but I think there is another subtler problem
in the works for the odonates.  I can't prove it, but it seems to me that
when it rains now it really rains hard, and these spates are causing rivers
to rise and fall quickly.  A river that rises quickly has the capability to
wipe out a whole generation of emerging odonates along its banks.  I think
for some of our river species the unpredictability of river levels may be
just as important as drought.

 

I suppose if one had time one could use the USGS sites like this one:

 

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/oh/nwis/dv?cb_00065=on
<http://waterdata.usgs.gov/oh/nwis/dv?cb_00065=on&cb_00060=on&begin_date=199
8-10-01&end_date=2007-07-03&site_no=03115400&referred_module=sw>
&cb_00060=on&begin_date=1998-10-01&end_date=2007-07-03&site_no=03115400&refe
rred_module=sw

 

to see if things have really changes over time.  Of course, this particular
site only has height data going back to 1998.  Still, a random sampling of
sites with a longer period of record might turn something up.  I small a MS
thesis in here somewhere.

 

Dave 

 

Dave McShaffrey

Marietta College

(740) 376-4743

www.marietta.edu/~mcshaffd

-----Original Message-----
From: odonata-l-bounces at listhost.ups.edu
[mailto:odonata-l-bounces at listhost.ups.edu] On Behalf Of Dennis Paulson
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 7:01 PM
To: Odonata-l
Subject: [Odonata-l] drought areas in US

 

For those who aren't familiar with this website, it's a reminder of where we
should expect drought conditions on our Odonata field trips in the United
States. It seems everywhere I go in the last decade is going into or just
getting out of drought conditions. It wasn't that way several decades ago.
We should be talking about "global drying," and this is something that
surely will have profound effects on odonate populations. I've seen that
already in the Pacific Northwest. We are out of a drought period now, and it
will be interesting to see if species return that disappeared from large
areas of shallow ponds that dried up for several years.

 

http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html

-----

Dennis Paulson

1724 NE 98 St.

Seattle, WA 98115

206-528-1382

dennispaulson at comcast.net

 





 

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