Effort launched to develop statewide monitoring strategy for freshwater HABs

SCCWRP and its partners have kicked off an effort to develop a statewide strategy California’s water-quality management community could use to systematically assess water bodies’ susceptibility to HABs.

The initiative, which launched in January, is intended to provide the State Water Board and its management partners with a roadmap for how California’s water-quality management community could systematically assess water bodies’ susceptibility to HABs, understand drivers and optimally respond.

SCCWRP is planning to assemble a working group of managers and scientific experts who will identify managers’ key data needs, assessment questions, and recommended indicators and protocols.

The HABs monitoring strategy will build off a 2015 report co-authored by SCCWRP that laid out a broad strategy for how California managers could respond to HABs events. The monitoring strategy will be a key component of operationalizing California’s HABs response strategy.