Research Areas > Wetlands > Wetland Monitoring and Assessment > Wetland Information Mgmt Tools > State Wetland Toolkit

Project: Development and Implementation of the State’s Wetland Toolkit

Background and Objectives

In response to limited availability of systematic monitoring data, the State of California, through the Resources Agency and the State Water Resource Control Board, has initiated the development of a statewide Wetlands Monitoring Program (WDP). To support the WDP, the State is working towards the implementation of a toolkit of standardized data collection and assessment methods to monitor wetlands and riparian habitat within various state programs. This project will address the WDP’s goals to improve wetland monitoring, project tracking, and follow-through when evaluating compensatory mitigation, as well as to more effectively track net change in wetland and riparian acreage and condition. The toolkit consists of:

• Standardized wetland and riparian mapping methodologies that can be applied at the project or regional-scale
• Standardized rapid assessment tools for use in monitoring and project evaluation (California Rapid Assessment Method (CRAM))
• “Field to PC” data management tool for CRAM data (eCRAM)
• Framework and conceptual approaches to conducting probability-based surveys
• Online data management system for compilation, integration, and access to wetland data (Wetland Tracker)

The purpose of this project is to provide technical support to continue the development and implementation of the wetland assessment toolkit in agency programs. This work builds off of the successes and identified action items of the WDP. Specifically, the objectives are to:

1) Validate CRAM for depressional and seasonally tidal estuarine wetlands,
2) Develop and implement a CRAM training and quality assurance process through the “regional audit team” concept,
3) Demonstrate the application of level 1-2-3 assessment framework in the North Coast and
4) Update eCRAM and the Wetland Tracker to provide enhanced functionality, with the intent of easing its implementation into state agency programs.

Status

This is an ongoing project, initiated in 2008, with anticipated completion in 2011.

Methods

Targeted activities include:

• Support the statewide Steering Committee (SC). The SC is chaired by the Resources Agency and the State Water Board and includes many state and federal agencies involved in wetland planning and protection. 

• Train-the-trainers Program. Capacity for statewide training for CRAM and Wetland Tracker will be increased by augmenting the number of trainers qualified to conduct open enrollment classes that will begin in spring 2008 through the University of California Extension Service. The training program will be designed to meet the needs of state and federal agency staff, tribes, private consultants, and NGOs. The existing pool of requests for training and experience in other states suggests that two to four 3-day training sessions for practitioners will be required annually in each of the four coastal regions.

• Update IT engineering based on user community input. Requests for refinement and additional functionality of Wetland Tracker and eCRAM have been distilled into a set of priority tasks to meet state and regional needs in the near term. For eCRAM, this includes incorporating local imagery, enabling batched data uploads and downloads, updating eCRAM for some wetland classes, enabling user-defined data queries, and further integration of CRAM and Wetland Tracker databases. For Wetland Tracker, upgrades include final conversion to open source code, development of online mapping tools to standardize habitat maps and project maps through the State’s 401 certification process, and development of web-based online project update forms.

• Calibrate and validate CRAM for seasonally tidal estuarine and depressional systems. The development team and SC recognize that the current version of CRAM does not adequately assess seasonally tidal or depressional systems (i.e., palustrine wetlands). Seasonal estuaries include coastal lagoons and river mouths that close seasonally and therefore differ significantly from perennial estuaries. The depressional type includes seasonal and perennial sub-types for which CRAM needs to be separately adjusted. CRAM calibration will involve forming new sub-teams to compare CRAM scores to Level 3 vegetation data for 10 sites of each wetland type (seasonal estuarine and depressional) in each coastal region.

Partners

This project is being conducted in collaboration with the San Francisco Estuary Institute; the California State Resources Agency; the State Water Control Board; Regional Water Quality Control Boards 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, and 9; California Coastal Commission; California State Coastal Conservancy; San Francisco Estuary Institute; and the Humboldt Bay Harbor Recreation and Conservation District.