Partnering Organization: NWFCS (Colfax)
Project Goals:
Among many different types of research resources, this project is going to require finding data pertaining to economic and environmental impacts of dam removal.
Listed below are resources that might assist you with this project. This list is by no means meant to be an exhaustive. Rather it is meant to get you thinking about what sort of resources you might need and where they may come from.
If you have any question, please email me.
Below are some resources regarding understanding the history and contexts of the Snake River Dams
The Seattle TImes' (2020) "Salmon People: A tribe’s decades-long fight to take down the Lower Snake River dams and restore a way of life" article provides a detailed cultural and economic history of Snake River dams.
The Yale University School for the Environment published an article title "On the Northwest’s Snake River, the Case for Dam Removal Grows" which details both the economic and cultural impacts of the dams and their removal.
The private company, EcoNorthwest (2019) created an interesting report titled "Lower Snake River Dams Economic Tradeoffs of Removal." This report details economic, transportation, and other effects that the Snake River dams as well as the impact of their potential removal.
The USDA and Forest Services have produced extensive resources for understanding the effects of dam removal. Below are some reports that may be helpful.
USDA and Forest Service (2017) Liberated rivers: lessons from 40 years of dam removal. More than 1,100 dams have been removed in the United States in the past 40 years, and more than half of these were demolished in the past decade. This trend is likely to continue as dams age, no longer serve useful purposes, or limit ecological functions. Factors such as dam size, landscape and channel features, and reservoir sediment characteristics differ widely, so dam removal projects must be evaluated individually to determine the best approach. Stakeholders need trusted empirical findings to help them make critical decisions about removal methods, how to recognize and avoid potential problems, and what to expect in terms of geomorphic and ecological recovery.
USDA & the Pacific Research Station list of reports regarding dam removal.
There has also been numerous articles written regarding the impact of the removal of dams -whether that be ecological or economical. Take a look in the WSU Libraries' catalog to find such resources.
For this project you will need to find resources in newspapers and trade publications.
Helpful Industry Resources, newspapers, and trade publications.
For more in-depth information regarding corporate research, take a look at the Company Research Library Guide.
See also WSU News and Newspaper Research Guide.
Much of this project is going to involve finding scholarly research regarding a myriad of topics. Although you may find this research across many different resources,
Useful Scholarly Databases:
Includes Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences and Science Citation indexes, Journal Citation Reports, BIOSIS Previews, BIOSIS Citation Index, Derwent Innovations patent searching, MEDLINE, and Zoological Record. Updated weekly.
Search It is the WSU library catalog. You can search among many different types of resources and order materials from other institutions if they are not immediately available through WSU. You will find the most resources in Search It but you will also find the most noise.
AGRICOLA contains bibliographic records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Library.
PubMed
This link to PubMed is for those affiliated with WSU. PubMed comprises more than 30 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.