Postdoctoral Research Associate U.S. Geological Survey- Southwest Biological Science Center, Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center

Position Summary:

USGS Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center seeks a Postdoctoral Research Associate with interests in decision analysis, ecological modeling, and native fish management. Incumbent will develop value-of-information analyses related to supplementation of endangered delta smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus) in the Sacramento River-San Joaquin River Delta of California.

The Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), in collaboration and consultation with other federal, state, tribal, and local agencies, manages water resources and related activities as part of the Central Valley Project (CVP), California, for the purposes of conveyance, storage, water quality, and environmental benefits. Decision making related to water-resource management is difficult and controversial because water needs for human consumption, irrigation for agriculture, recreation, and the environment are often far greater than the available water supply. As such, there is a need for a robust framework to guide decision making and balance water-resource allocation between human and environmental needs, including those of Endangered Species-Act listed fishes such as delta smelt.

Despite multiple conservation actions, including flow actions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (Delta), delta smelt was nearly extirpated by 2021. Modest supplementation (experimental release of hatchery produced fish) has prevented the disappearance of the species in its native habitat. The need for supplementation has led to the development of supplementation strategies meant to conserve the species; however, there is considerable uncertainty around factors driving post-release survival, reproductive rates, and numbers of hatchery-produced fish that need to be released to contribute to positive population growth of delta smelt. Delta smelt supplementation is anticipated to work in tandem with other conservation-oriented elements of Reclamation’s CVP Long-Term Operations (LTO) and the California Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) State Water Project (SWP) to enable delta smelt to better withstand recurring drought and multiple other factors that have led to its decline.

Although the science activities listed in delta smelt supplementation plans address questions that will likely benefit the species in the LTO adaptive management framework, research and monitoring may not always address critical uncertainties linked to decision-making by the Culture and Supplementation of Smelt (CASS) steering committee, which includes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other cooperators.

Reclamation and other resource managers have proposed to incorporate Structure Decision Making (SDM) into the LTO adaptive management plan, including decision making related to delta smelt supplementation in the Delta, beginning in water year 2025. The SDM process provides a formal framework for stakeholder engagement and adaptive management. We plan to use tools available through 2 SDM to systematically evaluate cost-benefit tradeoffs of alternative delta smelt supplementation strategies in a transparent, quantitative, and reproducible way.

In addition, we will use value-of-information (VOI) tools to provide a formal, quantitative assessment of how much management outcomes can be improved if uncertainty related to delta smelt supplementation is reduced. With VOI tools, we will provide a measure of the impact of reducing uncertainty, including whether delaying management decision-making until uncertainties are resolved is worthwhile (i.e., a measure of improvement in management performance), and identify which uncertainties would be most important to resolve.

The incumbent will work closely with a team of quantitative ecologists and decision analysts from USGS Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center, USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center at the Patuxent Research Refuge, Bureau of Reclamation Bay-Delta Office, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.