New research identifies how forest conditions interact with snowpack in the Cascades Mountain range in Washington State. Focused on the drier eastern slopes, this research informs forest restoration strategies that both protect water supplies and reduce wildfire risk.
Water Connects Us All: Lessons from the Marshy Middle
Watch the Video: A Day in the Life
Summer Science Interns Find Connection in Conservation
Watch the Video: Frozen Frontiers
Cassie Lumbrazo, a Ph.D. student from the University of Washington, is dedicated to understanding the relationship between forests and snow. Together with an interdisciplinary research team and support from the Washington Department of Natural Resources and the Nature Conservancy, Cassie investigates forest-snow processes near Cle Elum Ridge.
When Restoration Gets Explosive
Using dynamite for restoration may seem like a paradox, but at TNC’s Port Susan Bay Preserve, we explored dynamite as a way to create estuary channels. The inspiration behind this method was to see if explosives could reduce the ecological impact of channel creation in comparison to using heavy machinery.
Port Susan Bay Preserve: Where have all the Chinook Gone? (Part 1)
Port Susan Bay Preserve: Where have all the Chinook gone? (Part 2)
Where the Water Meets the Sea
KCTS9-Crosscut interviews Dr. Emily Howe, Aquatic Ecologist at The Nature Conservancy for their “Human Elements” series where Emily talks about her personal connection to marshes and how she is working to restore these unique—and messy—ecosystems.
Creating the Stormwater Heatmap: An Open-Source Tool to Track Pollution
The Stormwater Heatmap harnesses the power of big data to model where stormwater pollution is generated across the landscape — helping public municipalities plan for the future. As a living tool continually updated with the latest data, it’ll be exciting to see how communities, academics, and policymakers can use this to create lasting impact.
Scientists in Action
Science at Home: A Video Series to See Our Work, Meet our Scientists
Two-Minute Takeaway: What is an Atmospheric River?
Our Science March Participation Went Global
On International Women's Day, these women in science inspire us
Woody Debris is a Salmon's Jam
Introducing Emily Howe
Written by Tammy Kennon
Photographed by Hannah Letinich, Volunteer Photo Editor
Emily Howe remembers a time when there were so many salmon, “they would bump your ankles. You could pet them!”
Emily, the Washington Nature Conservancy’s newest staff member, saw those fin-to-fin salmon as a child while camping with her family at Lake Wenatchee on the east side of the Cascades. But over the years as her family returned to the same stream, she watched those salmon dwindle, a firsthand observation of how humans impact the environment that launched a career.
After completing a biology degree at Vermont’s Middlebury College, she continued her education at the University of Washington, Seattle, earning an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Aquatic and Fishery Science.
To add real life experience to her education, Emily studied abroad in the San Blas Islands, off the Caribbean coast of Panama, and in Tanzania, an opportunity to “further how we think about land and people.”
“You can’t leave the people out; you have to integrate them,” Emily says. “We’re trying to figure out how to transform our daily lives to include nature, to offer natural solutions. We don’t have to have a negative impact. It can positive.”
In her new role as Aquatic Ecologist, Emily has come full circle. She will focus on salmon recovery, measuring the success of Nature Conservancy land and freshwater restoration efforts.
“We’re trying to get back to a system that works and functions more naturally,” Emily says. “Sometimes that’s building something that works like nature does.”
The Nature Conservancy efforts include rebuilding logjams to restore ecological processes in streams and bringing clear cut slopes back to their critical and natural place in the ecosystem.
Emily lives in Seattle with her husband and two children, 2 and 5 years old. They go camping, hiking, biking, clam digging, and other outdoor pursuits, “trying to get as dirty as we can.”