IMW - Monitoring Tidal Marsh Vegetation

Current habitat status and trends monitoring in the Skagit Delta focuses on ecogeomorphic parameters, such as blind and distributary channel extent, tidal wetland extent, delta progradation rate, and blind channel landscape connectivity. While not considered at the time the Chinook Recovery Plan was written, detailed vegetation status and trends monitoring to quantify habitat quality, as well as quantity, is now known to be a critical gap that needs to be filled to [1] provide early warning of anthropogenic and climate change impacts to vegetation, [2] provide additional insight into delta progradation or erosion, [3] design effective control efforts for impactful invasive species, and [4] support future investigations of the effects of vegetation community composition on juvenile salmon productivity in the estuary. Thus, we propose detailed vegetation status and trends monitoring to complement and support ongoing ecogeomorphic habitat status and trends monitoring, as well as IMW fish monitoring. The information and system understanding that we will develop from the proposed vegetation monitoring will improve salmon recovery efforts and adaptive management at the project and system scale.

we propose detailed vegetation status and trends monitoring to complement and support ongoing ecogeomorphic habitat status and trends monitoring, as well as IMW fish monitoring. The information and system understanding that we will develop from the proposed vegetation monitoring will improve salmon recovery efforts and adaptive management at the project and system scale.