California has invested an estimated $600 million over the past two decades to acquire and protect estuaries across the state. However, unlike other ecosystems with the California MPA network (e.g., kelp forests and rocky intertidal), there is a paucity of data and monitoring to effectively measure estuarine MPA performance, even as it has been shown that estuaries in California can serve as important fish and invertebrate nurseries, provide essential habitat for endangered animals (e.g., salmon and sea otters), and act as a natural filter of land-based contaminants before they reach the ocean. Many of California’s estuaries are threatened by overdevelopment and poor water quality, which ultimately has negative consequences for important estuarine species and habitats. Due to the severity of human stressors on many California estuarine MPAs, there is a great need to develop a robust state-wide monitoring program to assess current condition and select necessary management actions. The EMPA Monitoring and Assessment Program will establish a consistent approach for assessing estuary condition using standardized indicators, metrics, and sampling protocols.

Project Goals. The Program will effectively leverage the resources of multiple geographically representative institutions to create a sustainable monitoring program that will address the goals of the Marine Life Protection Act in estuaries. Specifically, the Program will develop a monitoring framework and baseline information (for select sites) needed to help EMPA managers, funders, and regulators:

1. Assess the conditions (key species abundance, diversity, structure, function, and integrity) of estuarine ecosystems in EMPAs, with a focus on how EMPAs:
   • Provide effective nursery habitat for focal fisheries
   • Support biodiversity of California marine ecosystems
   • Are degraded by post-colonial activities
   • Represent the range of estuarine habitat types historically present along the coast (including incorporating TEK)
   • Develop a framework to understand climate change resilience
2. Compare the conditions and anthropogenic stressors present in EMPAs to those in non-EMPA (Control) estuaries,
3. Relate the conditions in EMPAs to conditions in nearby offshore MPAs (using summary reports from other monitoring programs),
4. Build on previous efforts to identify key threats to estuarine conditions in EMPAs and Control estuaries,
5. Inform strategies for future management and conservation actions in EMPAs, and
6. Document MLPA performance in EMPAs and meet 2022 MPA reporting mandates.

DELIVERABLES:

• Project Website
• Link to DataOne
• NASA-JPL Develop Program StoryMap
• Final Reports
  • Project Summary Report
  • Data Analysis Report
  • Implementation Blueprint
  • Monitoring Protocol

The Juvenile Steelhead and Stream Habitat (JSSH) Database includes monitoring data of steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) density and stream habitat characteristics in four watersheds in Santa Cruz County, California. Data have been collected every fall since 1994, with one survey available in 1981. Data include steelhead density in two size classes and presence/absence of coho salmon. Additional presence/absence data are available for other species of fish, amphibians, and reptiles that are observed or captured during sampling. Stream morphometry, riparian, and bed characteristics are measured at each sampling location in pools, runs, and riffles.

In partnership with the County of Santa Cruz, the Central Coast Wetlands Group, and USEPA Region 9, research staff at the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project were contracted to provide an independent and comprehensive assessment of the JSSH Database.

• Link to JSSH website
• Link to Final Report

Bar-built estuaries are the dominant estuary type in California, and many of these small estuaries are subject to closure with a sand barrier separating a lagoon estuary from the ocean for days, months or even years. This report was written to provide an overview of considerations for managed breaching in California.  It presents a synthesis of processes and phenomena related to mouth closure and breaching in general and uses this to identify potential impacts of breaching, without intending any judgment of which impacts are more or less desirable.  Three specific systems are reviewed in detail: Los Peñasquitos Lagoon in San Diego County, Scott Creek Estuary in San Mateo County and Russian River Estuary in Sonoma County.  While there are fundamental similarities in the closure and breaching cycle across all bar-built estuaries statewide, there is also an immense diversity between these systems due to differences in size, in hydrology (wet north to dry south), and in development (rural, urban, agricultural, road/rail).

• Link to Final Report and Appendices

• Estuary Report Cards
• Link to Final Report

This project will use CCWG-developed methods to assess bar-built estuary and associated watershed conditions and provide the Coastal Program with a prioritization regime to direct on-the-ground efforts to improve habitat conditions and species services for the bar-built estuaries and their associated watersheds within the San Mateo coast focus area of the San Francisco Area Coastal Program. Connecting marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems, bar-built estuaries are complex and dynamic systems that provide a great diversity of habitat and ecosystem services. With a growing population, often centered on coastal confluences, these habitats experience varying degrees of alteration. Future alterations, increasing demand for freshwater and climate and sea level change all further threaten these habitats and the services they provide. Being at the bottom of watersheds bar-built estuaries accumulate impacts from upstream stressors creating both a management challenge and a monitoring opportunity. Results of this project will provide the Service with summary statistics, and other statistical results to help prioritize and focus management within this region to maximize benefit to local habitat value, species services, and overall landscape condition.

• Data Compilation File
• Estuary Report Cards
• Link to Final Report

CCWG provided expertise on wetlands to the resource agencies to help them balance multiple species, physical and ecological processes and to evaluate the tradeoffs between various options for the bridge replacement. CCWG staff attended and presented data at multiple TAC meetings and workshops over the course of the project. The end goal was to assist in the  identification of  a bridge replacement and restoration design for Scott Creek lagoon.

CCWG is collaborating with the Resource Management Division of California State Parks, John Largier at Bodega Marine Lab, and David Jacobs at UCLA to deploy temperature/depth loggers at bar-built estuaries on the north, central and south coast of California. These data are being collected to build a log-term data set on BBE water levels and breaching events. In some cases the logger data is being combined with marsh plain elevation surveys to estimate marsh plain inundation depth and periodicity.

• Link to map of water level logger locations

CCWG is collaborating with the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey and Elkhorn Slough Foundation to deploy SET stations in several estuaries to track sediment accumulation rates.  We are also deploying feldspar markers at matching locations to track the difference between the two methods of sediment accumulation monitoring.

The Central Coast Wetlands Group teamed with Big Sur Land Trust to assist with pre-project implementation monitoring and quality assurance (QA) for their Carmel River Floodplain Restoration and Environmental Enhancement Project (CRFREE) with funding from the USEPA West Coast Estuaries Grant Program.

The California Rapid Assessment Method (CRAM) was used to assess existing vegetation and habitat conditions at four sites in the project area, located east and west of Hwy 1 on the Carmel River floodplain.  Bird surveys quantified the species richness, habitat utilization, and bird species abundance.  A continuous water depth logger was installed to monitor the water elevation of the river prior to restoration.

• Link to Final Report

Through the development of new tools to assess riparian habitat extent and condition, this project will pilot the State’s Wetland and Riparian Area Monitoring Plan (WRAMP) to better manage riparian and riverine resources, integrate multiple monitoring and regulatory programs and stand as a model for rural and agricultural regions around the state. This proposal is in part a response to RB3’s specific request to develop tools and capabilities that support their “Vision of Healthy Watersheds.” The resulting products will be 1) a Central Coast WRAMP implementation document developed by the Central Coast Riparian TAC, 2) An inventory of Central Coast Riparian Resources, 3) a draft methods paper for distribution to the CWMW recommending a set of procedures of a “Remote Riparian Assessment Method” for use with accessible and inaccessible riparian resources, and 4) a draft GIS modeling program that will enable the current Riparian Area Mapping Tool to reference and interpret aerial imagery. A pilot run of the expanded capabilities will take place in the Morro Bay watershed.

• Link to Final Report
• Link to Riparian Rapid Assessment Method Field Book
  • Link to data sheet
• Link to RipRAM Central Coast Watershed Assessment Poster
• Link to Riparian Mapping Poster

Through the validation of 3 additional modules of CRAM used to assess wetland condition (depressional, vernal pool and slope wetlands), this project will enhance the ability to state agencies to implement the State’s Wetland and Riparian Area Monitoring Plan (WRAMP), allowing them to better manage and assess wetland and riparian resources utilizing scientifically validated tools. Validation provides the scientific evidence that CRAM modules adequately assess the potential of a wetland area to provide a broad range of ecosystem services as expected based on wetland type and setting. Without being validated, the efficacy of a module is essentially unknown because they lack the data and analysis to demonstrate that they accurately assessing wetland condition without error or bias.

• Link to Validation Reports:
  • Depressional Wetlands
  • Slope Wetlands
  • Vernal Pool Wetlands

Funding from USEPA provided support for the following three tasks:

• Develop training materials and presentations for a 3-day CRAM vernal pool training course for Placer County, California in April 2013. Support included the distribution of training manuals and field books to participants and a preliminary site visit to prepare for the training session.
• Production support for the development of four CRAM training videos. Primary video production 
came from EPA's Office of Multimedia. Training videos were shot for riverine, estuarine, depressional and bar-built estuarine wetlands at sites around the San Francisco Bay area. CCWG assisted with site selection, production of film notes, starred in the videos and helped refine the final products with aerial images and comments.
  • Bar-Built Estuary Training Video
  • Depressional Wetland Training Video
  • Estuarine Training Video
  • Riverine Training Video
• A final report was prepared addressed issues or concerns related to CRAM implementation, estimates of additional funding needs, and any programmatic recommendations that could be of use to EPA, USACE, or state partners involved in the use of CRAM in their respective regulatory programs.
  • Link to Final Report

In collaboration with the State and USEPA, California regional teams have developed analytical tools and assessment methodology that provide important statewide data for aquatic resource management. Until now, these tools have been targeted at riverine and estuarine systems. On the Central Coast of California, creek mouths and bar-built estuaries (a.k.a. lagoons) provide unique and valuable services to freshwater and marine species and are uniquely susceptible to adjacent land use impacts and pollution.This project seeks to address four priority tasks: 1) Create a classification system and complete an inventory of bar-built estuaries throughout California (initial tally includes over 200 such systems on the central coast alone); 2) Verify and validate the California Rapid Assessment Method (compare results with Level 3 data) for lagoons; 3) Test the Level 3 sampling protocols recommended within the conclusion of the Santa Cruz County Comparative Lagoon Ecological Assessment Project; 4) Conduct an ambient assessment of Central Coast lagoon condition throughout the State. As a result of this grant, CCWG has expanded its research on these systems. Please see the Bar-Built Estuary Research page for more information.

• Link to Final Report
• Link to Bar-Built Estuary CRAM Field Book
• Link to published journal article

The Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP), with the Central Coast Wetlands Group will develop the conceptual assessment framework for episodic streams in California. More than two-thirds of California’s streams are characterized by episodic flow, and therefore excluded from current ambient surveys because of the lack of appropriate assessment tools. Activities will include development of new tools and/or modification of existing tools for assessment of episodic stream types in California. All activities will be coordinated through the existing interagency workgroups, including the California Wetland Monitoring Workgroup (CWMW). This project is funded by a USEPA Region 9 Wetland Program Development grant.

CCWG assisted the USEPA in conducting the field data collection portion of the National Wetland Condition Assessment (NWCA) in California. The NWCA is one in a series of statistically-valid National Aquatic Resource Surveys (NARS) conducted by the USEPA to provide the public with a comprehensive assessment of the condition of the Nation’s waters. In addition to wetlands, the NARS also focus on coastal waters, lakes, and flowing waters in a revolving sequence. USEPA collaborated with state, tribal, federal, and other partners to implement the NWCA to meet three goals:

1. Produce a report that describes the ecological condition of the Nation’s wetlands.
2. Assist states and tribes in the implementation of wetland monitoring and assessment programs that will guide policy development and aid project decision-making.
3. Advance the science of wetlands monitoring and assessment to support management needs

• Link to Final Report

The goal of this project was to develop a network of wetland reference sites for the state of California. Grant activities focused in southern California (South Coast), Central Coast, Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta (Central Valley), Northern California (San Francisco Bay; North Coast as a subset of the Klamath bioregion), and the Sierra bioregions. This included reference sites for riverine, estuarine, bar-built estuarines, depressional and vernal pool wetland types. The sites selected will be used for training and calibration of CRAM practitioners. CCWG worked as a subcontractor to the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project to establish the reference sites on the Central and North Coasts.

Aquatic resource management depends on a comprehensive understanding of watershed condition. Unfortunately most monitoring and assessment is based on a single objective (e.g. regulatory compliance) or a single indicator (e.g. benthic macroinvertebrates). To remedy this, the USEPA has proposed a three-level framework for wetland monitoring. Level 1 consists of habitat inventories and landscape-scape assessment; Level 2 consists of rapid assessment; and Level 3 consists of intensive assessment. This integrated assessment approach was demonstrated in the Morro Bay Watershed, near San Luis Obispo, California using a series of wetland assessment tools developed by the state over the past five years. Demonstration of the three-tiered assessment in the watershed achieved three goals: 1) A synopsis of the extent and geographic distribution of the riverine wetlands and their associated riparian areas, 2) a probability-based survey of the ambient condition of the riverine wetlands and their associated riparian areas, and 3) an assessment of the status of a set of riverine restoration projects relative to the watershed ambient picture.

Link to Final Report