Progress in Measuring and Predicting Salmonid Habitat in Bar-Built Estuaries

42nd Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference

02 May 2025

1:30pm - 5:00pm

Session Coordinator: Dane Behrens, PhD, PE, Environmental Science Associates

This session will explore the current direction of approaches for understanding salmonid habitat in lagoons. There have been a lot of novel approaches developed recently to understand how water quality conditions, beach conditions, and flow conditions are changing in these systems between years, and gradually over time. Especially over the last decade, we've transitioned more and more toward a position of data wealth, and have a new problem of understanding how best to interpret growing sets of data in lagoons/estuaries (and how to continue evolving our approaches as technology changes).

A Framework for Condition Assessment and Monitoring of Estuary MPAs in California,

Kevin O’Connor, Program Manager, Central Coast Wetlands Group at Moss Landing Marine Labs

The Tail of Two Lagoons: Long-Term Monitoring of Two Dynamic Central Coast Bar-Built Estuaries, Michelle Tarian, Water Resource Analyst, City of Santa Cruz Water Department, Water Resource Section

Two Fish Swim into a Bar: A Legacy of Data to Evaluate Salmonid Rearing Potential in the Mattole River Lagoon, Emma Held, Mattole Salmon Group/Cal Poly Humboldt

Using Acoustic Telemetry to Investigate Movement Patterns by Juvenile Steelhead in a Central California Bar-Built Estuary, Rosealea Bond, UC Davis and NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC)

Using Two Decades of Empirical Data to Inform Habitat Enhancement in the Russian River Estuary, Justin Smith, Sonoma Water

Insights Into Potential Future Salmonid Habitat Changes Informed by Several Decades of Monitoring at the Russian River Estuary, Dane Behrens, Coastal Engineer, Environmental Science Associates