Stream monitoring program completes intercalibration, kicks off field sampling

The Southern California Stormwater Monitoring Coalition (SMC) has kicked off field sampling for its Regional Watershed Monitoring Program, following the completion of a SCCWRP-facilitated, annual field intercalibration exercise to ensure program participants can continue to generate high-quality, comparable results.

During the day-long SMC intercalibration exercise in March, program participants reviewed standardized protocols for collecting field data at Martha McLean-Anza Narrows Park in Riverside, a site near a tributary of the Santa Ana River. The site was chosen because it is part of an ongoing physical habitat restoration project to improve stream biological health.

SCCWRP and the SMC are leveraging this year’s stream sampling effort to collect data for a recently launched three-year study that is working to understand how restoring the physical habitat of streams that flow through Southern California’s engineered channels might be able to improve their biological health.

Rather than start its next five-year monitoring cycle, the SMC decided to extend its third five-year cycle by one year, through 2026.