Collaborative Systemwide Monitoring and Evaluation Project (CSMEP) - Year 5 : Annual Report for FY 2008.

Abstract

The Collaborative Systemwide Monitoring and Evaluation Project (CSMEP) is a coordinated effort to improve the quality, consistency, and focus of fish population and habitat data to answer key monitoring and evaluation questions relevant to major decisions in the Columbia River Basin. CSMEP was initiated by the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority (CBFWA) in October 2003. The project is funded by the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) through the Northwest Power and Conservation Council's Fish and Wildlife Program (NPCC). CSMEP is a major effort of the federal state and Tribal fish and wildlife managers to develop regionally integrated monitoring and evaluation (ME (2) document, integrate, and make available existing monitoring data on listed salmon, steelhead, bull trout and other fish species of concern; (3) critically assess strengths and weaknesses of these data for answering key monitoring questions; and (4) collaboratively design, implement and evaluate improved M&E methods with other programmatic entities in the Pacific Northwest. During FY2008 CSMEP biologists continued their reviews of the strengths and weaknesses (S&W) of existing subbasin inventory data for addressing monitoring questions about population status and trends at different spatial and temporal scales. Work was focused on Lower Columbia Chinook and steelhead, Snake River fall Chinook, Upper Columbia Spring Chinook and steelhead, and Middle Columbia River Chinook and steelhead. These FY2008 data assessments and others assembled over the years of the CSMEP project can be accessed on the CBFWA public website. The CSMEP web database (http://csmep.streamnet.org/) houses metadata inventories from S&W assessments of Columbia River Basin watersheds that were completed prior to FY2008. These older S&W assessments are maintained by StreamNet, but budget cutbacks prevented us from adding the new FY2008 assessments into the database. Progress was made in FY2008 on CSMEP's goals of collaborative design of improved M&E methods. CSMEP convened two monitoring design workshops in Portland (December 5 and 6, 2007 and February 11 and 12, 2008) to continue exploration of how best to integrate the most robust features of existing M&E programs with new approaches. CSMEP continued to build on this information to develop improved designs and analytical tools for monitoring the status and trends of fish populations and the effectiveness of hatchery and hydrosystem recovery actions within the Columbia River Basin. CSMEP did not do any new work on habitat or harvest effectiveness monitoring designs in FY2008 due to budget cutbacks. CSMEP presented the results of the Snake Basin Pilot Study to the Independent Scientific Review Panel (ISRP) in Portland on December 7, 2008. This study is the finalization of CSMEP's pilot exercise of developing design alternatives across different M&E domains within the Snake River Basin spring/summer Chinook ESU. This work has been summarized in two linked reports (CSMEP 2007a and CSMEP 2007b). CSMEP participants presented many of the analyses developed for the Snake Basin Pilot work at the Western Division American Fisheries Society (AFS) conference in Portland on May 4 to 7, 2008. For the AFS conference CSMEP organized a symposium on regional monitoring and evaluation approaches. A presentation on CSMEP's Cost Integration Database Tool and Salmon Viability Monitoring Simulation Model developed for the Snake Basin Pilot Study was also given to the Pacific Northwest Aquatic monitoring Partnership (PNAMP) steering committee in Portland on August 28, 2008. Further information on CSMEP strengths and weaknesses assessments and monitoring design products for FY2008 is presented in the main text and appendices of this Annual Report as well as being available on CBFWA's public website.