Columbia River Basin Coordinated Assessments Salmon and Steelhead Data Exchange

The Coordinated Assessments Project is developing efficient, consistent, and transparent data-sharing mechanisms among co-managers (fish and wildlife agencies and Tribes) and regulatory/funding agencies in the Columbia River Basin for anadromous fish related data. The project is coordinated by the Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Partnership with support from the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission StreamNet project and involves nearly a hundred biologists and data managers across the Columbia River Basin, representing essentially all agencies and tribes with an interest in anadromous fish management and recovery.  Our initial effort focused on the development of a Data Exchange Standard (DES) for four salmon and steelhead population indicators including natural origin spawner abundance, natural origin smolt to adult return rate, and natural origin recruits (adult and juvenile) per spawner.  We are currently working to include five hatchery indicators and to implement the Coordinated Assessments Exchange (CAX) as a node on the EPA exchange network. The initial DES will expand as additional indicators are agreed upon by the participants, focusing on the indicators of highest importance to fisheries management and restoration decision makers. We believe our lessons learned and infrastructure developed for this project will be beneficial to inform exchange standards for larger scale interests.