Columbia River Basin Coordinated Assessments Salmon and Steelhead Data Exchange

The Coordinated Assessments project is developing efficient, consistent, and transparent data-sharing mechanisms among federal, state, and tribal co-managers and regulatory/funding agencies in the Columbia River Basin for anadromous fish data. The project is coordinated by the Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Partnership and the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission StreamNet project, and involves nearly a hundred biologists and data managers across the Columbia River Basin. 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 per spawner (adult and juvenile). This effort required analysis and retooling of partner data systems to create the ability to share data in an efficient and effective way.  We are currently expanding the list of shared indicators and creating a Coordinated Assessments Exchange (CAX) as a virtual node on the EPA exchange network. The 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.