Effectiveness Monitoring

Project monitoring is fundamental to knowing how well a project is meeting it’s environmental goals. And cumulatively, how much restoration progress is being made throughout the lower Columbia River.

Project monitoring is incorporated into all projects the Estuary Partnership funds. The Habitat Restoration Program works concurrently with the Ecosystem Monitoring Program. Each includes both an ecosystem and project level approach that tracks the actions and results of restoration activities in the Estuary. In the long term, improvements made in effectiveness monitoring will inform the project selection process for habitat restoration.

Monitoring Protocols for Salmon Habitat Restoration Projects in the Lower Columbia River and Estuary

The number of restoration projects in the lower Columbia River and estuary continues to grow.  With this growth the need to develop and utilize standardized monitoring methods and protocols has become a priority. The Army Corps of Engineers, through their Anadromous Fish Evaluation Program, has funded and coordinated an effort to develop standardized monitoring protocols for restoration projects within the lower Columbia River and estuary. The protocols and methods developed and presented in the attached manual are straightforward and economical to use.  

Monitoring protocols that the manual outlines include:

1. hydrology (water surface elevation);
2. water quality (temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen);
3. elevation (bathymetry, topography);
4. landscape features; plant community (composition and cover);
5. vegetation plantings (success); and
6. fish (temporal presence, size/age structure, species).

The Estuary Partnership strongly encourages project sponsors to utilize these standardized protocols, so monitoring data can be comparable across projects. View the report: Monitoring Protocols for Salmon Habitat Restoration Projects in the Lower Columbia River and Estuary

Effectiveness Monitoring in Grays Bay - Plan for the Columbia Land Trust's Grays Bay Conservation Project Available

Land acquisition for conservation is taking place in unique, ecologically significant areas in the Columbia River Estuary. Recent acquisition of fee title in the Grays Bay area by the Columbia Land Trust allows for the planning, engineering, and design of restoration treatments with the goal of improving historic estuarine bio-physical processes. Overall these treatments are meant to accomplish the following goals as articulated by the Columbia Land Trust:

• Permanently protect 850 acres of habitat lands, including spruce swamp forested wetlands, inter-tidal floodplain channels and emergent/Scrub-shrub wetlands.
• Restore floodplain connectivity to 520 acres of tidal backwater, riparian and wetland forested habitat
• Restore over 300 acres of potential salmonid rearing habitat
• Enhance approximately 3.0 miles of riparian shoreline
• Protect three bald eagle nests and over 100 acres of potential marbled murrelet nesting habitat

To track the success of these goals, Columbia Land Trust contracted with the Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce (CREST) to develop a comprehensive, strategic approach to coordinate and implement monitoring efforts based on existing scientific principles. This plan is intended to address the following monitoring related issues:

• Direct efforts toward a prioritized list of parameters to monitor;
• Recommend actions for monitoring equipment, methods, frequency, and collection of data;
• Feasibility of implementing monitoring actions
• Management of data and dissemination strategies to enhance communication, presentation, and sharing of data for future outreach materials

View the Grays Bay Effectiveness Monitoring Plan for a complete description of the Grays Bay effort.