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Habitat Action Effectiveness Program for the FCRPS BiOp

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Briefing Outline

• BiOp requirements for Tributary Habitat RM&E• Identify the Performance Framework for adaptive

management and the Tributary Habitat Action Effectiveness Programmatic Approach

• Identify where ISEMP and CHaMP fit within the approach

• Describe how ISEMP and CHaMP will inform decision making for “on the ground” habitat actions and priorities

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FCRPS BiOp Habitat Requirements• Programmatic Performance - project implementation

commitments and observed physical metrics, tracked with PISCES.

• Biological Performance Targets – projected changes in habitat life stage survival associated with existing and planned habitat actions. Estimated for habitat actions by local expert panels using a model that estimates changes in habitat quality.

• RM&E and Adaptive Management RPAs.• Annual Progress Reports and 3 yr Comprehensive

Assessments and updated 3 year Implementation Plans.

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BiOp Implementation Plan

BiOp RPAs and Fish Population Requirements

for No Jeopardy

Programmatic Performance Objectives

Project Implementation Metrics - Pisces

Plan

ning

Impl

emen

tatio

nPo

st-Im

plem

enta

tion

Anal

ysis Biological Status

& Effectiveness Assessment

Annual and Comprehensive

Reports

RM&EHydro Predators Tributary Estuary Hatchery

Biological & Environmental Metrics –

Regional Data Bases

Biological (Fish) Performance Objectives

Adaptive Management

Programmatic Implementation

Assessment

F&W Program Project Planning and Funding

Ongoing process

Performance Framework

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General Strategy to Support the Performance Framework

1. Identify the Management Questions and associated Performance Metrics.

2. Develop and implement a Programmatic Approach to Action Effectiveness Monitoring to answer these management questions and inform performance metrics.

3. Coordinate and standardize RM&E with regional agency programs and manage habitat and fish data to support assessment needs.

4. Provide ongoing evaluation of habitat and fish status data to develop relationships and ultimately integrate these relationships into lifecycle modeling of climate effects.

5. Provide annual communication of results to expert panels, decision makers, and regional sovereigns to guide adaptive management decisions for habitat actions (e.g. updates on limiting factors, more/less beneficial types of projects, priority locations within an ESU or across ESUs).

6. Assess effectiveness of RME for informing decision making and identify of any course corrections (e.g. reduction of parameters or intensity) in 2013, 2016 (Comprehensive Evaluations), and 2018 (end of BiOp term).

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BA/BiOp Tributary Habitat Management Questions

• Are tributary habitat actions on track to achieve expected performance standards and targets?

• What are the relationships between tributary habitat actions, habitat changes, and fish survival or productivity increases?

• Which actions are most effective? • What are the limiting factors or threats preventing

the achievement of desired habitat or fish performance objectives?

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Programmatic Approach to Habitat Action Effectiveness RM&E

The primary components of the approach have been identified in: • FCRPS BiOp RM&E Plan (2003)• FCRPS BiOp (2004)• Action Agency (AA) Biological Assessment for the 2008 BiOp• BPA comments to the 2009 Fish and Wildlife Program Amendments• The Monitoring and Evaluation and Research Report (2009)• Anadromous Salmonid Monitoring Strategy (2010)• AA/NOAA/NPCC BiOp RM&E Workgroup Recommendations

Report (2009 and 2010).

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Programmatic Components1. Project implementation and compliance - post implementation

monitoring that includes reporting of physical metrics (in PISCES) for every project, combined with an independent third party audit using a subsample of the program.

2. Fish and Habitat Status and Trend Monitoring - fish-in and fish-out paired with habitat monitoring for one population per major population group targeting high-priority habitat action subbasins.

3. Watershed Level AE research - population level response to actions at a watershed scale. (IMWs are a type of this research)

4. Project level AE research – local or reach scale habitat and/or fish response to actions.

5. Data Assessments to develop statistics and relationships between habitat actions and ultimately to incorporate them into lifecycle modeling.

6. Standard monitoring protocols and data management practices to allow combining information in assessments and reporting.

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Programmatic Approach

Statistical Assessments and

RelationshipsAssessment Inputs

Contract Implementation(Type of RM&E and

Program)InformsResults

Fish In/Fish Out (VSP)

ANOVA procedures, t-

tests, time series, regression

analyses, and modeling

Habitat Conditions

Site Specific Biological & Physical Benefits

Statistics and

relationships between Habitat Actions, Habitat

Conditions, and Fish

Conditions

Improved Habitat Project Management

BiOp and F&W Program Reporting and Adaptive Management

Project Metrics

Implementation (Sponsor & COTR)

Compliance & Post - Implementation

(3rd Party) Expert Panels and Progam Reviews: Types of actions/treatments to fund.

Fish Population Response to Actions

Status and Trend(Fish VSP)

State and Tribal Managers

Status and Trend(Habitat Condition)

CHaMP

Action Effectiveness(Watershed Scale IMW)

ISEMP

Action Effectiveness(Project/Site Scale) (PNAMP & TetraTech

Method)

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Project implementation and compliance monitoring

• Monitoring of project actions to determine if they were implemented properly and to document functional changes over time.

• Documents type of action, location, extent of the action, and the physical/chemical consequences of the project over time.

• Used for programmatic performance tracking.• Supports development and application of Action

Effectiveness Monitoring Designs and Analyses.• Coordinated and standardized implementation metrics

through PNAMP.• Incorporated into PISCES project tracking system.• 3rd party evaluation of subset of all actions .• Random sample representative of action categories.• Pilot in UC in project 2010-075-00

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Fish and Habitat Status and Trends• Measures changes to fish populations and habitat

conditions in space and time.• Fish population monitoring usually includes estimating

fish in (escapement or spawning escapement) and fish out (smolt abundance).

• An an important component of IMWs.• Used by expert panels for identification of limiting

factors, priority habitat actions, and habitat suitability assessments.

• CHaMP habitat metrics and protocols for standard habitat monitoring.

• Specific AMIP and BiOp RPA requirements – one population per MPG.

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Watershed Level Action Effectiveness

• Assesses the effects of actions or suites of actions on population abundance, productivity, distribution, and survival.

• Intensively monitored watersheds (IMWs) are a type of Population-Scale Effectiveness Monitoring.

• Typically uses a before-after (BA) or before-after-control-impact (BACI) design.

• Inventory and Quality Assessment coordinated with PNAMP.

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ISEMP/CHaMP• This work is linked to the requirements of the 2008/2010

BiOp, and focuses on better informing our habitat actions and expert panel process between now and 2018.

• Pilot projects started in 2003 as ISEMP Wenatchee, Methow, and Entiat river basins in the Upper Columbia River, the Lemhi and South Fork Salmon river basins, and the John Day River Basin to pilot and test action effectiveness and status monitoring approaches.

• These pilot projects became the IMW element of the program, which now covers 9 watersheds. A “lessons learned” report for 2003-2010 will be compiled and presented later this year to inform the management questions, demonstrate progress, and guide decision makers implementing offsite mitigation habitat projects.

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ISEMP/CHaMP (continued)• CHaMP projects provide habitat status monitoring for an

additional 15 watersheds, as identified in 2009 and 2010 BiOp RM&E Recommendations Reports and Skamania ASMS. CHaMP compliments the IMWs and uses the same habitat parameters and protocols, but with less intensity of effort.

• Together, the IMWs and CHaMP projects will cover at least one population per MPG. Parallel fish population monitoring for CHaMP watersheds is being implemented under other projects. This expanded work relies on BiOp placeholder funds, and will not be increasing further over time.

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PNAMP ISTM Project (Integrated Status and Trend Monitoring)

• Implemented in the Lower Columbia to develop recommendations to design and implement more coordinated and effective fish population and aquatic ecosystem monitoring.

• Region-wide "master sample" concept for the selection of sampling locations in the Lower Columbia river area with a web-based master sample tracking and management system.

• Address compatibility/comparability of the metrics/attributes collected by various habitat monitoring programs including, CHaMP, AREMP/PIBO, EMAP (WA Ecology), ODFW Habitat Program.

• Supporting development of habitat data exchange templates.• A future workshop by PNAMP will discuss data exchange

opportunities for variables that are comparable.

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Project and Reach Scale Action Effectiveness

• Local or reach scale habitat and/or fish response to actions• Needed to assess changes in population responses to a

specific habitat restoration type• Tetra Tech Protocols- BACI Design • Not every project • Third Party, programmatic approach• Limit to specific action categories• Coordination and cost share with state programs • Limit to 10 year studies or less (not every year needed)

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Watershed Scale AE

Spatial Scale

Relevance to PopulationLow High

Project Scale AELow

High

Relevance to Action Type LowHigh

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Data Management

• Improve access, sharing, and coordination of fish and habitat monitoring data.

• monitoringmethods.org• Ongoing Coordinated Assessments Workgroup

Process.• Developing data exchange templates and data

flow diagrams for VSP Fish Population metrics.• Next up is habitat metrics DETs.• Second workshop this spring.

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ISRP Comments• As the ISRP acknowledges, our goal is to strike a balance between good science

and timely, useful information for ongoing habitat management decisions during the BiOp term (2018).

• We agree with the ISRP that this work needs to better identify how the outputs that will be synthesized from the data collection to inform “on the ground” management decisions by expert panels and regional sovereigns. We will work with BiOp RM&E workgroup and project sponsors and will better describe the statistical analyses, relationships, and useful outputs that will be provided for decision makers.

• We agree with the ISRP that there needs to be more formal communication of past and future lessons learned from these studies. We will be taking steps to include annual and cumulative lessons learned components in our contracts and ESA progress reports going forward.

• We will critically review the scope of this monitoring in 2013, 2016, and finally in 2018 to assess the need and value to management decisions. At these check-ins, we will revaluate the level of monitoring and number of parameters going forward to insure useful science-based information for “on the ground” implementation. Using adaptive management, we will refine the approach for efficiencies where available. We will compare the ISEMP/CHaMP approach to results from other similar efforts such as PIBO and the Washington Watershed approach.