Monitoring |
Effectiveness monitoring is a structured method of observing river restoration projects and learning how they are working to accomplish their goals. After putting a restoration project or combination of projects in place on the Middle Fork, scientists track the river ecosystem and fish populations closely over a long period of time to see what happens.
Intensively Monitored Watersheds (IMWs) don’t just monitor individual restoration actions, however. We are curious to know how many restoration projects, implemented over several years by different groups, work together to cumulatively impact fish and their habitat. This is what makes IMWs unique: Instead of only examining how a single restoration project affects its local stretch of river, we look at how a combination of projects affects the whole watershed, river, and fish populations. View the video below to see some great examples of effectiveness monitoring in action! |
What do we monitor?
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In the Middle Fork John Day River (Middle Fork) IMW, we focus our restoration and monitoring on spring Chinook salmon, summer steelhead, and the places they live in the Middle Fork watershed.
We do three main types of monitoring to track restoration’s effects: Biological, habitat, and socioeconomic monitoring. Like a doctor trying to figure out what is causing the symptoms of a patient’s illness, we’re trying to learn what aspects of current habitat conditions are the biggest obstacles for recovering these fish. For example, we have identified high summer water temperatures as one important attribute limiting salmon in the Middle Fork; therefore much of the monitoring and restoration we do on the Middle Fork is focused on cooling water temperatures. Water temperature is just one of several key aspects we focus on. For more details on the IMW’s experimental design and study plan you can view the full Study Plan and Objectives, a short summary of the Study Plan, or the Draft Implementation Plan. |
