Pacific Salmon Foundation: Salmon Watersheds Program

Deadman River. Photo by Braela Kwan.
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Strengthening community-based monitoring of stream temperature and flow conditions

Throughout the Pacific northwest, cumulative effects of watershed degradation and climate change continue to impact salmon populations and their habitats, creating uncertainty regarding their ability to maintain resilience in the face of these pressures. Salmon are sensitive to freshwater conditions during multiple life stages, and these conditions, in turn, can be dramatically affected by the interacting dynamics of climate change, human land-use, and natural disturbances. Stream temperature and flow are two of the most important freshwater habitat indicators for salmon, and both reflect impacts of a changing climate and encroaching human activities. 

Understanding trends in stream temperature and flow over time and throughout different locations is critical for current and future decisions regarding salmon conservation actions. However, coordinated monitoring and information synthesis at large scales is challenging. At present, a multitude of entities — First Nations, governmental agencies, corporations, and non-governmental organizations — collect measurements of freshwater temperature because these measurements are relatively easy and inexpensive to collect. Fewer entities — mostly government agencies — collect stream flow measurements because current approaches are costly and require highly-trained staff. While the current and historical data for these freshwater indicators are valuable, there is limited coordination or guidance on best practices, quality control, data management, and data sharing for community-led stream temperature and flow monitoring. The result is that many data are either decentralized or are not available in a form that directly characterizes the quality of habitat for salmon specifically, which makes it difficult to integrate this information into processes to understand and respond to changes in salmon ecosystems. Additionally, in some cases, there remain significant gaps in stream temperature and flow monitoring in important salmon habitats, which undermine our efforts to understand the exposure of these populations to unfavourable freshwater conditions. 

Stream temperature monitoring locations (historical and active) identified by PSF so far, including stations that are included in the databases of larger institutions (pink circles) and stations where data are held by local groups (green circles).
Stream flow monitoring locations (historical and active) that are included in the Water Survey of Canada’s HYDAT database (pink triangles). There are currently relatively few stream flow monitoring efforts that are led by local groups. 

Through a three-year grant (2023–2026) from the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund, the Salmon Watersheds Program is working with a large network of organizations across the Pacific region towards a more harmonized and coordinated approach to community-led stream temperature and flow monitoring in freshwater salmon habitats. 

We are taking a multi-pronged approach, including three components:

  1. Creating a quality-controlled database of freshwater temperature data for Pacific salmon habitats in Canada. As an initial step, we have worked to characterise the Pacific-region freshwater data landscape: who collects data, what kind of data, how are data collected, for whom, for what use? With a better grasp of the data landscape, we are working to compile and centralize freshwater temperature data from local entities across the Pacific region into a single, quality-controlled database. To ensure the data in this database are ready for a variety of applications, we are developing and applying open-source tools to semi-automate quality-assurance/quality-control (QA/QC) and ensure disparate datasets are provided in a common format with associated metadata. This freshwater database will cover the BC and the Yukon and will be maintained with regular data updates led by PSF. It will be publicly shared via the Salmon Data Library to support a variety of efforts, such as the development of broad-scale temperature models, adaptive fisheries management processes, and planning for climate-resilient salmon freshwater ecosystems.
  2. Producing resources to empower communities and local organisations with best practises for stream temperature and flow monitoring. While monitoring by communities and local organizations can be instrumental to a broader collective monitoring effort, there are practical realities that limit the ability of smaller groups to access the information and training required to produce high-quality measurements. To help empower local groups and improve the accessibility of information on this type of monitoring, PSF is developing guidance on methods and protocols that can be used for community-led water monitoring in salmon ecosystems to ensure resulting data are consistent and comparable across projects. These guidance resources will be developed by PSF with hydrologists and other relevant experts, in collaboration with PSF’s community-based partners to allow for shared learnings and ensure that the resulting guidance products will address the needs and questions of communities.
  3. Providing direct support for community-led stream temperature and flow monitoring in priority freshwater salmon habitats. In order to take immediate steps to improve the coverage of monitoring for these two key salmon habitat indicators, PSF is providing strategic support and funding to partner organizations who are well-positioned to fill critical gaps in water monitoring. By assessing the current state of stream flow and temperature monitoring throughout the Pacific region, we can identify critical salmon freshwater habitats where there are monitoring gaps. We are working with project partners to design and install new infrastructure for monitoring of stream temperatures and/or stream flows in priority locations and support the continuation of existing monitoring at key sites with more permanent infrastructure to ensure these data continue to be collected.

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