Workshop Coordinators: Christina Toms, SFRWQCB, and Kevin O’Connor, Central Coast Wetlands Group

 

California Estuarine Marine Protected Area (EMPA) Monitoring Program is an ongoing effort to assess the quality and condition of estuaries statewide. The program goals are to monitor California estuaries with a standard, comprehensive function-based assessment framework to determine the health of California’s estuaries and the efficacy of MPA designation. Partners in the program have developed an assessment framework, standard monitoring protocols, data structures, and quality control measures. The program includes the compilation and analysis of select, currently available data sets, a focused field data collection effort to fill data gaps through implementation of standard protocols (abiotic, biotic, habitat, and stressor parameters), quantification of the current benefits of MPA status, and the development of long-term monitoring and management recommendations to expand the benefits of EMPA designation and document changes through time.

 

One of the key functions that the EMPA science framework assesses is the ability of estuaries to support fish communities, including (but not limited to) rearing and migrating salmonids. The purpose of the proposed workshop is to increase statewide estuarine monitoring capacity by training SRF attendees in EMPA monitoring protocols, including field work, data management, and data analysis. The program is especially interested in increasing estuarine monitoring capacity along the North Coast, and the SRF conference provides a unique opportunity to bring together existing North Coast program partners (e.g., WSP staff from the North Coast Water Board, scientists from SSU and UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab) with potential future program partners (e.g., North Coast tribes, NCRP, Cal Poly Humboldt SLRI, etc.). The workshop will be led by EMPA staff from the Central Coast Wetlands Group (including their WSP staff); field work and training will be done at a Santa Cruz estuary close to the conference location. Final workshop details and logistics will be developed collaboratively with SRF conference organizers.