Effort launched to build statewide program for monitoring estuary health

SCCWRP and its partners have begun working to establish a statewide monitoring program for coastal estuaries that is optimally responsive to the needs and priorities of managers.

During a workshop in October co-hosted by SCCWRP and the University of California, Davis, dozens of estuarine researchers and managers came together to formulate a common vision for estuarine monitoring that emphasizes producing managerially relevant, actionable data.

The workshop follows the publication earlier this year of a statewide monitoring framework intended to bring consistency to how California assesses the health of its coastal estuaries.

Although monitoring programs already are in place for estuary sites across California, these programs have never been coordinated statewide, limiting managers’ ability to understand overall ecological health or compare the condition of individual sites

A technical report summarizing the outcomes of the October workshop will be published in the coming months.