1) Dry Creek Habitat Enhancement Project Adaptive Management Plan: Evaluating Physical and Biological Response

Habitat characteristics that affect salmonid freshwater life stages include physical, chemical, and biological conditions. While the links between habitat condition and salmonid ecology are well-known, the biological response to changing a specified condition can be difficult to detect, requiring a robust monitoring program that adapts to clear signals detected in the data.  The Sonoma County Water Agency’s (SCWA) Dry Creek Habitat Enhancement Project used information on current conditions to inform the design of projects to enhance juvenile salmonid habitat along a one mile reach of Dry Creek, a tributary to the Russian River.  The reach is intended to demonstrate potential techniques to be applied to future project phases along six miles of Dry Creek over the course of several years.  Enhancement approaches target off-channel areas, stream banks, and in-channel areas to create hydraulic and escape cover for coho and steelhead juveniles and promote macroinvertebrate production.  SCWA is monitoring the ecological and physical effectiveness of the enhancement features, and validating juvenile salmonid usage following an Adaptive Management Plan that integrates data to evaluate enhancement measures.  The project is being evaluated at multiple scales: feature, site, enhancement reach, and project reach against performance measures and evaluation outcomes will guide future actions.