Protocol for Quantifying Thermal Benefits of Riparian Shade

Credit Calculation using Shade-a-lator in HeatSource Version 8.0.5 or 8.0.8

The Shade-a-lator model contained in HeatSource Version 8.0.8 (Shade-a-lator) is an approved metric for calculating Water Quality: Temperature Credits in the Willamette Partnership’s Ecosystem Credit Accounting System. Shade-a-lator was developed by Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to calculate thermal load reductions (or shade potential), in kcal/day, from riparian shade restoration projects. The assessment’s spatial unit is a stream reach whose upstream-downstream boundaries are defined by the user, and whose lateral boundaries extend outward and perpendicular to the stream to a distance also defined by the user, but typically not more than 150 feet (the usual size of recommended buffers).

Calculating thermal load reductions requires multiple steps:

1. Acquisition and pre-processing of data layers representing the elevation, topography and vegetation of
   the current (or pre-project) condition and the future (or post-project) condition.
2. Spatial analysis to generate Shade-a-lator inputs. This requires ArcGIS version 9.x or higher, DEQ’s TTools add-on and the spatial analyst tool set.
3. Run Shade-a-lator on the baseline and post-action condition. The difference between the two is equal to
   the shade potential of the restoration design.

Read the full protocol for quantifying thermal benefits of riparian shade using Shade-a-lator.