Redesigning Modern Portfolio Theory to Improve Spatial Recovery Planning for Oregon Coast (OC) Coho Salmon

Oregon Coast (OC) coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) are a federally listed threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. It is integral to conserve this species due to their ecological importance in nutrient cycling and cultural significance to Indigenous peoples. The combination of their threatened status and significance creates a sense of urgency for conservation organizations, like the Wild Salmon Center, to efficiently allocate their budgets. In this project we redesigned Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) to optimize habitat restoration spending. MPT is traditionally used in finance to inform portfolio managers what the risks and returns are of investing in different portfolios of assets. In our redesigned application, the 21 populations of OC coho salmon are treated as assets, with the increase of salmon abundance and variance directly relating to the amount of money allocated to conserve each population. More specifically, we applied our new approach to mitigating barriers th...,
Adult Coho Salmon Spawner data: This dataset was given to us by our client, the Wild Salmon Center, but was sourced through the Oregon Adult Salmonid Inventory & Sampling Project run by the Oregon Department of Fish & Widlife (ODFW).  
National Hydrography Reaches: All files were given to us by our client the Wild Salmon Center. Each file were given and downloaded as .shp files for each individual population in the OC coho Salmon Evolutionary Significant Unit (ESU). These files were created specifically for the Wild Salmon Center and NOAA by Terrainworks using USGS' National Hydrography Dataset. Many variables are outputs of different climate models ran by Terrainworks using the variables within USGS' orginal hydrography dataset. These .shp files were used to better understand stream habitat within the ESU.
Population Boundaries: All files were given to us by our client the Wild Salmon Center as a .shp file with all populations included. Each individual population was then expo..., , # Redesigning Modern Portfolio Theory to Improve Spatial Recovery Planning for Oregon Coast (OC) Coho Salmon

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pvmcvdntm](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pvmcvdntm)

In this project, we redesigned Modern Portfolio Theory as an endogenous framework. To do this, we developed a model, based on the Beverton-Holt population model, in R to calculate the impact of conservation investment on OC Coho Salmon spawner abundance in the Pacific Northwest. Our model considered barrier impact data and cost data to estimate how many fish would return to the population for every dollar spent on conservation projects, given a budget constraint, and aggregated those results to the ESU level. This resulted in the total ESU fish abundance and total ESU variance calculated for each population, which was visualized along an efficiency frontier. This frontier can inform conservation managers how to allocate funds to maximize salmon returns for a given level of variance. The code for...