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Field Methods Development for Data Collection
May 2009 Field Protocol - Draft (May 20, 2009) 
The purpose of this Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRFB) project is to develop a sampling plan that reports on the status of Watershed Health and Salmon Recovery Efforts at three spatial scales: Water Resource Inventory Area (WRIA), Salmon Recovery Region (SRR), and statewide. The goal of this project is to develop a Quality Assurance Monitoring Plan (MP) for implementing a statewide probability-based sampling effort to inform on the condition of streams, and rivers. The MP will include details on:
This project will provide information for periodic reports like the "State of the Salmon" and can be used to produce assessment reports for aquatic ecosystems required by federal agencies as part of their recovery program.
The need for a Status and Trends Monitoring Plan Proposal came from goals and objectives identified in an order by legislative mandate (SSB 5637) for Watershed Health and Salmon Recovery. Under this legislation a Comprehensive Monitoring Strategy was formed for statewide application. Following completion of this strategy, a Governor's Executive Order directed natural resource agencies to begin implementation of this Comprehensive Monitoring Strategy (CMS).
This Status and Trends Monitoring Plan Proposal carries forward the directives in the Executive Order and begins the process for providing specific guidance on how to implement a monitoring plan where local, state, federal and tribal government partnerships can contribute to the effort. This proposal (pdf, 375kb) will be a "blueprint" for what to do and how to do it. A description of the goals and objectives can be found in Volume 2 of the Comprehensive Monitoring Strategy.
The following description is a list of goals and objectives extracted directly from the monitoring plan proposal. These statements summarize the goal for initiating monitoring efforts over large spatial scales and enabling participation of numerous groups that can assemble similar information so that cost is reduced and timeliness enhanced.
The goal of status and trends monitoring is to provide quantitative, statistically valid estimates of habitat and water quality that are important for policy and management decisions.
The objectives of the status and trends monitoring plan are as follows:
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Describing the status of habitat and water quality is focused at three landscape scales: Water Resource Inventory Areas, Salmon Recovery Regions, and Statewide. These areas are the focus of important resource conservation and protection efforts. Information generated for each of these administrative regions is useful for state and federal agencies in managing aquatic resources. The Department of Fish and Wildlife as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-Fisheries use Salmon Recovery Regions as a management unit. The Department of Ecology uses the Water Resource Inventory Areas for managing water quality and quantity issues. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) summarizes aquatic resource information at the regional and nationwide scale.
Our monitoring efforts within the State of Washington are intended to serve specific needs within our management areas and then contribute to the larger regional reporting units commonly used by federal agencies.
The intent of producing the monitoring framework is to provide for statewide and Salmon Recovery Region coverage through state and federal funding to answer the following monitoring questions:
To the extent that local partners wish to contribute to funding and sampling, the framework design provides for answering habitat and water quality questions at the WRIA scale. This is because it provides the pre-selected data points and common sampling protocols to answer various monitoring questions such as:
Reporting Process: Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund: 2005 Report to Congress
Federally appropriated funds are used to conserve, restore and sustain Pacific salmon populations listed under the federal Endangered Species Act and their habitats. This funding is competitively distributed among local, state, and tribal organizations that collaborate as a partnership to identify factors that limit salmon productivity and to develop management plans that will restore populations. Monitoring and evaluation are conducted within evolutionarily significant units (ESU) where management plans identify "major factors limiting recovery" for success of each salmon species. This report also outlines efforts of various public and tribal organizations in achieving restoration goals.
Reporting Process: Status of the Nations Rivers and Streams
EPA has been actively seeking ways to describe aquatic conditions across broad spatial scales without having to sample every water body. This amounts to extrapolation of conditions described from an unbiased selection of sites. The Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP)method has been developed and is actively being used to select representative stream sites for determining extent of aquatic resource conditions (e.g., poor/fair/good condition). Standard expressions for habitat and water quality conditions have been suggested and the tools for generating this information have been developed. The EMAP site selection strategy is the cornerstone for the "Status and Trends Monitoring Plan."
Reporting Process: State of Salmon in Watersheds
The State of Salmon in Watersheds report is issued by the Governor's Salmon Recovery Office every two years. The report is a collaborative process by the GSRO, Department of Fish and Wildlife, Department of Ecology, Conservation Commission, Interagency Committee, and Department of Natural Resources and aggregates monitoring information from a variety of governmental and tribal sources in order to provide status updates on environmental conditions in Salmon Recovery Regions (SRRs) of the state. Information provided in the report includes two types of indicators. "High level indicators" are used by the Governor's office, legislature and other governing bodies in making environmental management decisions. The other type of evaluation indicator includes regional views using: water quality status, water quantity status, habitat quality status, and barriers to fish passage. Along with mapped locations for restoration projects, regions of the SRRs are color-coded to indicate general health of the environment. Graphs showing progress for select salmon species are included at the end of each recovery region description that reports spawner abundance over the years and includes the smolt production index.
The first "State of Salmon" report relied heavily upon the "Habitat Limiting Factors" analysis that was coordinated by the Washington Conservation Commission. (http://salmon.scc.wa.gov/), but future "State of Salmon" reports will require new information.
Reporting Process: Integrated [303(d) and 305(b)] Report
The Washington State Department of Ecology prepares a water quality assessment report on a two-year cycle. This report includes information that describes chemical, physical and biological conditions in both water and sediment throughout the state. It also describes conditions in both freshwater and marine environments. The assessment is a precursor to the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program where understanding the dynamic of pollutant introduction, transport, and fate is the focus. Following assessment is development of the management strategy for reversing pollution effects and restoring water quality to expected conditions. The following is a web address to access results:
Workshop attachments are provided as Portable Document Format (pdf) files or Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt) files. Free viewers for these file types are available. If you still have difficulty accessing these files, contact the Environmental Assessment Program webmaster for assistance.
Workshop #1
Theme: The Site Selection Process and Sub-Populations
Date: September 23, 2005
Location: OB-2 (Mt. Hood Room)
Meeting Notes & Agenda
Agenda
Notes
Meeting Presentations
1. The Concept of a Master Sample: A
Case Study
2. Hydrology GIS Layers
Workshop #2
Theme: Indicators, Performance Evaluation, and Selection
Date: October 27, 2005
Location: OB-2 (Room SL-04)
Meeting Notes & Agenda
Agenda
Notes
Meeting Presentations
1. EMAP Indicator Responses, and
lessons learned
2. The AREMP experience and
comparisons
3. Monitoring instream, upslope, and
riparian attributes/processes to determine the effects of management actions
(Attachment 9)
Workshop #3
Theme: Existing Data Sets and their Contribution to a Monitoring Program
Date: December 1, 2005
Location: OB-2 (Room SL-04)
Meeting Notes & Agenda
Agenda
Notes unavailable at this time
Meeting Presentations
1. Surface Waters Information
Management Database
2. Status and Trend Monitoring in the Upper
Columbia, the Wenatchee Experience: web-based data access
Workshop #4
Theme: Analytical Products and Status Reports
Date: January 5, 2006
Location: NRB (Room 172)
Meeting Notes & Agenda
Agenda
Notes
Meeting Presentations
1. Powerpoint
presentation
If questions, contact Glenn Merritt, (360) 407-6777, gmer461@ecy.wa.gov.
Copyright © Washington State Department of Ecology. See http://www.ecy.wa.gov/copyright.html.
