Evaluating Watershed Response to Land Management and Restoration Actions: Intensively Monitored Watersheds (IMW) 2005 Progress Report

The Intensively Monitored Watershed (IMW) program has been funded by the Salmon Recover Funding Board (SRFB) since June 2003 to evaluate the efficacy of habitat restoration in increasing salmon production. The basic premise of the IMW program is that the complex relationships controlling salmon response to habitat conditions can best be understood by concentrating monitoring and research efforts at a few locations. Focusing efforts on a relatively few locations enables enough data on physical and biological attributes of a system to be collected to develop a comprehensive understanding of the factors affecting salmon production in freshwater.

There are three sets of IMW sites (complexes) in western Washington focusing on coho salmon, and steelhead and cutthroat trout and two areas focusing on chinook salmon; the Skagit River estuary (ocean-type chinook) and the Wenatchee River (river-type chinook) (Figure 1).

This report describes progress to date and outlines restoration and research plans for FY 2006.