California Healthy Watersheds Assessment

1. California Healthy Watersheds Assessment Status Update March 7, 2013

2. U.S. EPA Healthy Watersheds Initiative • EPA HWI website: www.epa.gov/healthywatersheds • Overarching goals of the Initiative: • Protect and maintain healthy watersheds, and increase their numbers over time. • Raise the visibility and importance of protecting high quality waters. • Emphasis is on the protection of: • Landscape connections • Watershed processes and functions

3. Healthy Watershed Attributes

4. Healthy Watersheds Assessments Methodology Watershed Health Calculate or estimate the indicators for each watershed Select indicators that represent the six attributes of watershed health Create a multimetric index of watershed health Data acquisition and review Establish and prioritize management actions Select indicators that represent watershed vulnerability Calculate or estimate the indicators for each watershed Create a multimetric index of watershed vulnerability Watershed Vulnerability

5. Project Goals & Objectives • Screening-level assessment to rank watersheds on a statewide basis according to their relative condition as defined by indicators of: • Landscape Condition • Hydrologic Condition • Habitat Condition • Geomorphic Condition • Water Quality • Biological Condition • Combine with a vulnerability assessment to help set management priorities

6. Timeline • November 2011 – Draft Technical Approach • February 2012 – Initial Selection of Indicators • August 2012 – In-person Project Meeting to Finalize Technical Approach and Selection of Indicators • February 2013 – Draft Results • April 2013 – Draft Report • May 2013 – Final Report and Data Delivery

7. Outcome from August Meeting • Partnership selected: • Watershed Condition Indicators: • Watershed structural attributes that drive aquatic ecosystem processes and for which spatially continuous landscape-level data are available. • Aquatic Ecosystem Health Indicators: • Aquatic ecosystem attributes for which high quality data representative of the various ecoregions in California are available at discrete sampling locations

8. Watershed Condition Indicators • Percent Natural Land Cover in the Active River Area • Percent Natural Land Cover in the Watershed • Percent Natural Land Cover in Headwater Areas • Soil Infiltration Capacity • Relative Risk of Excess Sediment Production • Number of Road/Stream Crossings • Dam Storage Ratio • Artificial Drainage

9. Aquatic Ecosystem Health Indicators

10. Analysis of Aquatic Ecosystem Health Indicators

11. Initial Model Performance

12. CRAM Wetland Index • Represents habitat condition attribute • Based on California Rapid Assessment Method data.

13. CRAM Wetland Index • Relative size of red dot represents percent error in predictions at locations with observed data.

14. CSCI • Represents biological condition attribute • Based on new Combined Stream Condition Index (CSCI)

15. CSCI • Relative size of red dot represents percent error in predictions at locations with observed data.

16. Physical Habitat Index • Represents geomorphic condition attribute • Based on current work being conducted by Southern California Coastal Water Research Project

17. Physical Habitat Index • Relative size of red dot represents percent error in predictions at locations with observed data.

18. Multimetric Index • Predicted values of each Aquatic Ecosystem Health Indicator were normalized to a scale of 0-1 and averaged together for each of: • Hydrologic Condition • Geomorphic Condition • Water Quality • Habitat Condition • Biological Condition • Similarly, the Watershed Condition Indicators were normalized to a scale of 0-1 and averaged together to obtain a Watershed Condition Index.

19. Watershed Condition • Percent Natural Land Cover in the Active River Area • Percent Natural Land Cover in the Watershed • Percent Natural Land Cover in Headwater Areas • Soil Infiltration Capacity • Relative Risk of Excess Sediment Production • Number of Road/Stream Crossings • Dam Storage Ratio • Artificial Drainage Area

20. Hydrologic Condition • Large Flood Flow Alteration • Small Flood Duration Alteration • Small Flood Date Alteration • Small Flood Frequency Alteration • Alteration in Rate of Fall After High Flow Events

21. Geomorphic Condition • Physical Habitat Multimetric Index

22. Habitat Condition • California Rapid Assessment Method Index

23. Water Quality • Temperature • pH • Conductivity • Turbidity • Nitrate

24. Biological Condition • Combined Stream Condition Index

25. Aquatic Ecosystem Health • Hydrologic Condition • Geomorphic Condition • Water Quality • Habitat Condition • Biological Condition

26. Watershed Vulnerability • Climate Change Vulnerability • Projected change in precipitation • Projected change in temperature • Projected change in baseflow • Projected change in monthly snowpack • Projected change in wildfire severity • Projected change in monthly surface runoff • Land Use Vulnerability • Fire Regime Condition Class • Projected Land Cover Change • Water Use Vulnerability • Current Water Demand

27. Climate Change Vulnerability • Projected change in precipitation • Projected change in temperature • Projected change in baseflow • Projected change in monthly snowpack • Projected change in wildfire severity • Projected change in monthly surface runoff

28. Land Use Vulnerability • Fire Regime Condition Class • Projected Land Cover Change

29. Water Use Vulnerability • Current Water Demand

30. Watershed Vulnerability • Climate Change Vulnerability • Land Use Vulnerability • Water Use Vulnerability

31. Outcomes from Feb. 14Call with HSP • Identification of thresholds or weights for the various indicators will require a stakeholder process that is not feasible under this project timeline. • Results will be reported at the scale of analysis (135,255 stream reach catchments). This allows for rollup to any larger scale desired. • Desert ecoregion will be evaluated based on watershed condition indicators only.

32. Next Steps • Refine and finalize modeling. • Produce a draft final report for review by HSP (4/8/2013). • Produce revised final report and deliver data (5/13/2013): • Geodatabase of all input data and model outputs.

33. Discussion • What are the Council recommendations for presenting the results in the final report and the Healthy Streams Portal?