Hollings Scholar Sets the Curve at Kachemak Bay

NOAA’s Hollings Scholarship Program sponsored Anna Lowein’s internship at Alaska’s Kachemak Bay Reserve, where she used her knowledge of hydrology to develop computer models, now used by the Reserve and their partners.

For Anna Lowein, the estuary at Alaska’s Kachemak Bay Reserve was unlike any classroom she’d been in before. Instead of sitting in a lecture hall at the University of Maryland, she was wading waist-deep through icy rivers. And instead of reading textbooks on hydrology, she developed a project that had a direct management impact on the Reserve.

Anna’s 10-week internship and outdoor learning experience was sponsored by NOAA’s Hollings Scholarship Program. Her goal was to develop a set of discharge rating curves for the Anchor River. These digital models predict the river’s discharge into the estuary mouth.

“The Reserve had all of the data needed for a curve, but no one had had a chance to sit down with it and get the whole picture,” says Anna. “Developing the curves was one of the first instances of taking classroom learning and applying it to a real world problem. And of learning how to troubleshoot independently as I went! This project gave me more confidence as a woman in science, to produce a good result that helps people, and it confirmed my desire to do more of this work in grad school.”

Because river discharge corresponds with the spawning of Chinook salmon—one of the state’s most valuable fisheries—Anna’s models are already being used by the Reserve’s managing partners, including the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. A discharge curve allows agencies to predict peak salmon months more effectively and plan management decisions accordingly.

“The Anchor River discharge rating curves Anna produced will help us to better understand how water conditions influence Chinook salmon run timing,” says Mike Booz, Assistant Area Management Biologist at Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game. “This data is used to make timely management decisions in-season for both in-river and nearby marine sport fisheries.”

Nearby salmon stocks have experienced above and below average runs in recent years, requiring frequent fine tuning of management strategies, making the new discharge rating curves particularly valuable.

Anna Lowein collects data in a river at Kachemak Bay Reserve. Anna used several years of data to develop the discharge rating curves which allow the Reserve and partners to predict salmon spawning times.

NOAA’s Holling Scholarship Program has supported more than 130 students like Anna. Scholars receive tuition support and paid summer internships at facilities sponsored by NOAA and partners like Reserves each year.

“We are always happy to have interns like Anna,” says Kachemak Reserve Manager Coowe Walker. “It’s wonderful to see what they can do when programs like Hollings give them the opportunity. We particularly appreciate her focus on a new and important application of our monitoring data. There’s a lot of untapped value there just waiting for new scientists to discover it.

Anna’s work was recognized with an award for best student project/poster at the 2018 NERRS annual meeting. Moving forward, Anna will pursue her Master’s Degree in Natural Resources at the University of New Hampshire, where she will continue to study watershed sciences and hydrology.