This project seeks to develop two novel monitoring and evaluation programs: (i) subbasin-scale pilot status and trend monitoring efforts for anadromous salmonids and their habitat in the Wenatchee, John Day and Salmon River basins, and (ii) effectiveness monitoring for suites of habitat restoration projects in selected watersheds within the three target subbasins.  This work builds on current status and trend monitoring programs within each of these basins; however, the proposed work differs structurally from much of the ongoing status and trend monitoring work as it focuses on the explicit development and testing of the sampling protocols and methodologies required for generating habitat and population monitoring data of known spatio-temporal resolution, accuracy and precision.  In addition, the proposed work expands on the utility of status monitoring data to explicitly address watershed-scale questions of habitat restoration action effectiveness.

(i) The status and trend monitoring program for anadromous salmonids and habitat in the Wenatchee, John Day and Salmon River basins will serve three major data collection efforts:
--At the scale of the subbasin, assess on an annual basis the status of adult populations of anadromous salmonids.
--At the scale of the subbasin, assess on an annual basis the population status or productivity of juvenile anadromous salmonids.
--At the scale of the subbasin, assess on an annual basis the status of salmonid habitat.

Data from the status and trend monitoring program will be used for a variety of resource management purposes.  The primary utility of the information will be the annual assessment of status and resulting trend over time for these fishes and their habitat.  However, this program will also support restoration action planning and assessment by serving as the baseline information used for action siting, and the baseline against which actions' biological impact could be measured.

(ii) The effectiveness monitoring program for assessing the watershed-scale impact of restoration actions in selected portion of the Wenatchee, John Day and Salmon River basins will explicitly address questions of action efficacy:
--At the scale of a watershed, what is the biological benefit to anadromous salmonid populations of the implementation of ongoing habitat restoration actions?
--Within and between target watershed in a single subbasin, what is the distribution of physical/environmental habitat condition as a function of ongoing habitat restoration actions?

While the genesis of this project was initially strictly status and trend monitoring of populations and habitat condition, a natural extension of these data collection programs is a watershed scale assessment of habitat action efficacy.  Habitat restoration actions are generally implemented on a reach or habitat unit scale and can be assessed for effectiveness at that scale.  However, when needing to determine the population level response to restoration actions, the actions' cumulative impact must be assessed on the scale of the demographic unit as a whole.  At this scale, determining the effect of multiple simultaneous actions is more an issue of differences in population growth rates (alternatively stage specific survivals, or productivity expressed as juveniles per adult) than an elucidation of the mechanism by which a particular action or class of actions alters the population processes of these fishes.  Therefore, assessments of watershed scale population trajectories so closely resembles status monitoring that their combination is a natural pairing.  

Even though this proposed work will address habitat and population status monitoring and watershed scale effectiveness monitoring within the same program, the status and trend monitoring remains distinctly different from the watershed scale effectiveness monitoring.  The distinction arises from the manner by which sampling locations are chosen in space.  The proposed status monitoring program is based on a spatially balanced random sampling design (EPA's EMAP) to capture unbiased representative samples of physical/environmental indicators across the landscape.  The watershed scale effectiveness monitoring program will sample the same suite of reach scale physical / environmental indicators at each project location, but because the project locations are not randomly distributed in space these samples represent the population of projects, not the background habitat condition.  However, the two programs do overlap in the evaluation phase - the habitat status samples can serve as within and between watershed control sites if the appropriate covariate matching is performed.

Specifically, this contract's portion of the entire project (2003-017-00) will address overall coordination issues.  The overall technical and scientific coordination of the project will be accomplished by the project sponsor (NNMFS/NWFSC, Dr. Chris Jordan) through this contract.  In addition, this contract will cover three additional technical coordination tasks: data collation, data management oversight, and statistical support.  These tasks fall under the overarching heading of technical project management, and are identified as individual tasks as they will be accomplished through a variety of subcontracting vehicles initiated by the project sponsor.

BACKGROUND/CONTEXT

The genesis of this project has two major components.  First is the development of habitat and population status monitoring guidelines for the Mainstem / Systemwide Province Provincial Review Process and parallel efforts to define the status and effectiveness monitoring requirements of the 2000 NMFS FCRPS Biological Opinion (RPA 180, 181, and 183: Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3) and the Basinwide Salmon Recovery Strategy.  While these collections of monitoring protocols and program designs were developed by regional fisheries managers, the program as a whole has never been adequately tested in the Columbia River basin.  To meet the status monitoring component of these needs, a proposal was initially drafted and submitted in response to the programmatic solicitations of the Mainstem/Systemwide Provincial Review.  The proposal generated significant interest; however, the proposal also stimulated discussions as to the practicality and advisability of implementing only a portion of an integrated, comprehensive multi-scale status and effectiveness monitoring program.  Therefore, in the second phase this project's development, the proposal was extensively modified to incorporate additional monitoring and evaluation components, thereby increasing its integrative and comprehensive nature.  The resulting proposed status and effectiveness monitoring program seeks to implement landscape and reach scale habitat and population status monitoring in parallel with watershed-scale habitat restoration action effectiveness monitoring for anadromous salmonid populations of the Columbia River basin.  As such, the proposed work is designed to move our current knowledge of monitoring programs forward through field testing and on-the ground evaluation.  The status monitoring needs for anadromous salmonid populations and habitat are clear, as are the gaps in our existing status monitoring programs and data.  Even more necessary is a large-scale assessment of the efficacy of habitat restoration actions.  What the region lacks is an implemented comprehensive habitat and population status and effectiveness monitoring program - this project addresses these needs directly through the initiation of three subbasin scale pilot intensive monitoring programs.

The subbasin scale pilot intensive monitoring program in the Wenatchee, John Day and Salmon River basins will involve a hierarchical coordination process.  Overall program coordination to ensure consistency across the three pilot projects, as well as their compliance with regional RME initiatives, will reside with the overall project sponsor (NMFS/NWFSC: PI -Chris Jordan).  Each subbasin scale project will be designed and implemented under the cooperative agreements developed by a subbasin specific Technical Oversight Committee (TOC).  The TOC and project PI will engage in high-level design and coordination discussions.  To further develop these coordination and design discussions each subbasin pilot project will have a coordination staff.  It will be the role of the coordinator(s) to fully develop the cooperative agreements and coordination efforts proposed by the TOC.  Furthermore, the coordinator(s), in consultation with the PI, will develop monitoring program design scenarios for consideration by the TOC.  Finally, to implement the recommended RME program the coordinator(s) will have the primary role in drafting statements-of-work for participating individuals and agencies.  Once implemented, the coordinator(s) may have a role in project management, data collection, and data analysis.

Implementing the subbasin scale intensive monitoring projects will require contracting with numerous individuals and agencies.  Each subbasin will require a coordination staff - these activities will be captured in contracts with BioAnalysts (Plan writing, and productivity monitoring components) and Terraqua (habitat monitoring components) (Wenatchee), Eco Logical Research (Statistical analysis of potential projects and monitoring indicator development) and NMFS/NWFSC (Coordination of collaborators, TOC and project development) (John Day), and Quantitative Consultants (Plan writing and statistical analysis of potential projects) and NMFS/NWFSC (TOC development) (Salmon River).  Initial on-the-ground scoping and data collection work will occur only as needed during the initial planning period for each sub-basin.  Additional contracts will be developed during the planning and implementation phases as needed.