Featured IWRP Projects

Restoration Monitoring Program

This IWRP component is scheduled to begin scoping and development in Fall 2004.

Each of the watershed plans has identified the need for a watershed monitoring program in order to continue the streamflow, water quality, and habitat monitoring that was established by the watershed assessments. Each plan varied in the specificity of its monitoring program. Coastal Watershed Council staff and volunteers are collecting some of this information in three of the watersheds under their Clean Streams program and the County of Santa Cruz Environmental Health Services Department and the Surfriders Foundation also have various water quality monitoring programs geared to various objectives. To address the specific restoration objectives of the watershed plans, a coordinated monitoring program is needed that covers all of the seven IWRP watersheds. This will assure consistency of data across watersheds and be more cost-effective than individual monitoring efforts.

A technical advisory committee comprised of staff from the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Department of Fish and Game, the County of Santa Cruz and other local governments, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and the Coastal Watershed Council will evaluate these various programs and design an appropriate monitoring program for the seven watersheds that would provide data useful for adaptive management of the watersheds, identify long-term staff and funding resources and prepare implementation funding proposals, determine quality controls, and establish a data repository and mechanisms for data analysis and reporting. Potential liaisons with university programs will be investigated. Subsequent data collection and analysis will be funded from other sources identified during the monitoring program strategic planning.

Additional details on this component will be posted here as they become available.

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