Importance / Issues

During the KLMN vital signs scoping process, water quality of the Network’s aquatic resources was identified as an important element of the overall health of the Network’s diverse ecosystems. Two of the ten most important Network-wide vital signs identified by this process were (1) water quality characteristics of surface waters, and (2) aquatic biota and communities.

The fundamental goal of this integrated protocol is to provide guidance for monitoring the status and trends of the water quality and aquatic communities of Klamath Network perennial, surficial freshwater ecosystems, specifically: (1) perennial, montane ponds and lakes (CRLA, LAVO), (2) perennial, montane wadeable cold-streams (CRLA, LAVO, WHIS), (3) perennial, coastal and Coast Range wadeable cold-streams (REDW), and (4) cave-associated wadeable cold-streams (ORCA).

Aquatic ecosystem health has consistently been the dominant theme during the identification of network-wide water quality issues. The ability to (1) document improvement (or lack thereof) in the water quality of Clean Water Act section 303(d) listed impaired streams, and (2) the ability of park managers to document progress toward achieving GPRA goal 1.a4 (i.e., that parks have unimpaired water quality), has underscored the importance of identifying a suite of measurement parameters useful for effective water quality assessment. The need to fully inventory aquatic resources and document baseline and reference water quality conditions also were identified as important objectives in the development of a vital signs-based long-term water quality monitoring program.

Parks

Crater Lake National Park
Lassen Volcanic National Park
Oregon Caves National Monument
Redwood National and State Parks
Whiskeytown National Recreation Area

Protocol Development & Status for Lakes

Protocol Development & Status for Streams

Contact Information

Project Manager

Eric Dinger
Aquatic Ecologist
Klamath Network
1250 Siskiyou Blvd.
Ashland, OR  97520
541-552-8574

Preliminary Monitoring Objectives

1. Sample a suite of physical, chemical, and biological parameters that can be used to determine site-specific and ecosystem-level baseline water quality and aquatic community conditions of the freshwater systems being monitored.
   
   
Develop and maintain a database and associated metadata for storing data derived from the measurement and analysis of physical, chemical, and biological parameters sampled for each monitored ecosystem.


3. Analyze data using a suite of statistical tools useful for documenting the status and trends of the ecosystems being monitored; and based on this analysis identify for each ecosystem any possible site-specific and ecosystem-level deviance beyond natural variation in baseline conditions.
   
   
4. Report the results of status and trend analysis annually and provide ongoing synthesis of annual reports no more than one year after the completion of each 3-year monitoring cycle.

Potential Measures

The temperature, specific conductance, dissolved oxygen, pH, alkalinity, cations and anions, total nitrogen, ammonia, nitrate/nitrite, total phosphorus, silica, total suspended solids, and dissolved organic carbon will be measured at lentic and lotic sites.

Lentic site physical habitat characteristics to be measured include elevation, surface area, perimeter, maximum depth, water clarity, inlet and outlet assessment, basin characteristics (i.e., aspect, geology, and origin), and vegetation zone.

Lotic site physical habitat characteristics to be measured include elevation, thalweg profile, channel and riparian characteristics, turbidity, woody debris tally, channel constraint, and assessment of debris torrents and major floods.

Biological community parameters to be measured at all sites include benthic macroinvertebrates, amphibians, and fish. In addition, samples for chlorophyll and zooplankton analysis will be collected at lentic sites and periphyton samples will be collected at lotic sites.

Samples for determining the presence/concentration of fecal indicator bacteria also will be collected at two lotic sites (Oregon Caves and Whiskeytown).

There are two Clean Water Act section 303(d) listed impaired sites that will be monitored as part of the monitoring plan: Redwood Creek (Redwood) and Willow Creek (Whiskeytown). Redwood Creek will be monitored for temperature and sedimentation/siltation; Willow Creek will be monitored for heavy metals.