California Estuaries Portal: Learn, Report, and Manage Water Quality

1. My Water Quality California Estuaries Portal ESTUARY MONITORING WORKGROUP OF THE CALIFORNIA WATER QUALITY MONITORING COUNCIL My Water Quality California Estuaries Portal ESTUARY MONITORING WORKGROUP OF THE CALIFORNIA WATER QUALITY MONITORING COUNCIL Learn the Issues Reporting Management Tools Portals CA Estuaries Learn the Issues Reporting Management Tools Portals CA Estuaries Under the management tools dropdown, there could be links to BDL Safe ABOUT US BAY DELTA LIVE STEWARDSHIP What is the Estuary Monitoring Workgroup? What is Bay Delta Live? What is being done to protect California’s estuaries? The California Estuary Monitoring Workgroup is tasked with identifying key questions to assess the Bay Delta Live (BDL) is the technical user interface for the California Estuaries Portal. BDL enables users to explore It is every citizen’s responsibility acting as a steward in protecting the environment. The Sacramento Ecological health of California’s Estuaries, the data and methods available and needed to address the questions, and the methods to access these data. Learn more data in more depth and provides more functionality than is possible here on the Estuaries Portal. Customizable data dashboards can even be developed using BDL’s interactive framework. Read more Regional County Sanitation District is in the process of purchasing and restoring habitat surrounding the their treatment plant…. Learn more HIGHLIGHTS Safe LEARN THE ISSUES REPORTING MANAGEMENT TOOLS What is Water Rights Decision 1641? What is the State of the Estuary Report 2015? How are fish being used to manage the Delta? A water right is a legal entitlement authorizing water to be diverted from a specified source and put to The State of the Estuary Report is the most comprehensive health report ever completed for The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Delta Juvenile Fish Monitoring Program has recently developed online content for accessing and visualizing data, which is being used by various groups for real time and adaptive management of the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta. Learn more beneficial, non-wasteful use. The Interagency Ecological Program’s Environmental Monitoring Program has developed online interactive content for their D-1641 reporting. Learn more for the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary. It uses the best available science and most recent data contributed by over 30 scientists….. Learn more

2. My Water Quality California Estuaries Portal ESTUARY MONITORING WORKGROUP OF THE CALIFORNIA WATER QUALITY MONITORING COUNCIL My Water Quality California Estuaries Portal ESTUARY MONITORING WORKGROUP OF THE CALIFORNIA WATER QUALITY MONITORING COUNCIL Learn the Issues Reporting Management Tools Portals CA Estuaries Learn the Issues Reporting Management Tools Portals CA Estuaries California Estuaries Portal The California Estuaries Portal presents information on the health of California’s estuaries, with an initial emphasis on the San Francisco Estuary. The portal includes interactive maps and monitoring data that focus on key ecological attributes (or “Living Resources”) such as phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthic organisms, and fish. The new California Estuaries Portal brings this information together in a single location and in an easy to understand manner for the public, environmental organizations, and water quality professionals. The goal is to make this information as timely and user-friendly as possible. Bay Delta Live Bay Delta Live (BDL) is the technical user interface for the California Estuaries Portal. BDL allows users to explore data in more depth and provides more functionality than is possible here on the Estuaries Portal. Customizable data dashboards can even be developed using BDL’s interactive framework. Bay-Delta Live is a collaborative community of interests with the goal of expanding open and transparent sharing of information essential in understanding the complex and dynamic ecosystem of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta. Bay-Delta Live provides information from multiple sources using enhanced visual interfaces. Bay-Delta Live is used by resource managers, scientists, conservationists, policy makers, academics, and other local community interests. BDL is supported through contributions from federal and state agencies, as well as community and agency information.

3. We could consider adding restructuring drop downs to make connections between the portal and BDL more seamless. California Estuaries Portal A product of the California Water Quality Monitoring Council’s Estuary Monitoring Workgroup, the California Estuaries Portal presents information on the health of California’s estuaries, with an initial emphasis on the San Francisco Estuary. While Bay Delta Live (BDL) serves as the technical user interface, the California Estuaries Portalbrings data and information together in a single location and in an easy to understand manner for the public, environmental organizations, and water quality professionals. The goal is to make this information as timely and user-friendly as possible. A similar landing page could be developed (See slide 2). Consider adding an icon to represent the Estuaries Portal (to connect users to the Portal Homepage)

4. My Water Quality California Estuaries Portal ESTUARY MONITORING WORKGROUP OF THE CALIFORNIA WATER QUALITY MONITORING COUNCIL My Water Quality California Estuaries Portal ESTUARY MONITORING WORKGROUP OF THE CALIFORNIA WATER QUALITY MONITORING COUNCIL Learn the Issues Reporting Management Tools Portals CA Estuaries Learn the Issues Reporting Management Tools Portals CA Estuaries Benthic Invertebrates Reporting Requirements How are they monitored? Data Dashboard What Are they? SAN FRANCISCO BAY DELTA ESTUARY • What are Benthic Organisms? • Benthic organisms are creatures that live at the bottom of water bodies. They include common invertebrates (animals without backbones) like clams, shrimp, and crabs and other less recognized creatures including worms, little crustaceans called amphipods, and aquatic insects. These organisms live in or on the soft mud of the Estuary, while others attach themselves to rocks and other hard surfaces. There are also benthic vertebrates (animals with backbones) that include various fish species among other creatures. Read more • Why Are Benthic Organisms Important? • Benthic organisms are important part of the estuarine food web. They consume and are consumed by other creatures. Every winter during low-tides, thousands of migrating shorebirds feast themselves upon uncovered clams, crabs, and worms found in the mudflats. Humans, as well, take advantage of the low-tides to harvest their own feast. Certain fish species, including juvenile salmon, striped bass, and sturgeon, also consume many types of benthic organisms.Read more

5. My Water Quality California Estuaries Portal ESTUARY MONITORING WORKGROUP OF THE CALIFORNIA WATER QUALITY MONITORING COUNCIL My Water Quality California Estuaries Portal ESTUARY MONITORING WORKGROUP OF THE CALIFORNIA WATER QUALITY MONITORING COUNCIL Learn the Issues Reporting Management Tools Portals CA Estuaries Learn the Issues Reporting Management Tools Portals CA Estuaries Benthic Invertebrates Reporting Requirements How are they monitored? What Are they? Data Dashboard SAN FRANCISCO BAY DELTA ESTUARY • Department of Water Resources Benthic Organism Study • The California DWR Benthic Organism Study measures the composition (what kinds?), abundance (how many?), diversity (how many kinds?), and distribution (where are they?) of benthic organisms as part of the IEP’s Environmental Monitoring Program (EMP). Changes in their composition, abundance, diversity, and distribution are documented within the SF Estuary, from San Pablo Bay east through the upper Estuary to the mouths of the Sacramento, Mokelumne, and San Joaquin Rivers. Read more • Department of Fish and Wildlife San Francisco Bay Study • EMP monitoring sites, however, are not as good for accurately sampling shrimp and crabs, but the CDFW San Francisco Bay Study surveys collect crabs and shrimp monthly using an otter trawl. Thirty-five fixed monitoring stations are distributed evenly throughout four sub-regions of the estuary, including South, Central, San Pablo, and Suisun Bays. Read more To view the locations of phytoplankton and chlorophyll-a monitoring stations in the map above, please select: • Monitoring Program?

6. My Water Quality California Estuaries Portal ESTUARY MONITORING WORKGROUP OF THE CALIFORNIA WATER QUALITY MONITORING COUNCIL My Water Quality California Estuaries Portal ESTUARY MONITORING WORKGROUP OF THE CALIFORNIA WATER QUALITY MONITORING COUNCIL Learn the Issues Reporting Management Tools Portals CA Estuaries Learn the Issues Reporting Management Tools Portals CA Estuaries Benthic Invertebrates • REPORT ARCHIVE Reporting Requirements How are they monitored? How are they monitored? What Are they? Data Dashboard SAN FRANCISCO BAY DELTA ESTUARY • Water Rights Decision 1641 Compliance • The State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) establishes water quality objectives and monitoring plans to protect the variety of beneficial uses of the water within the upper San Francisco estuary. Read more • 2015 Summary • The State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) establishes water quality objectives and monitoring plans to protect the variety of beneficial uses of the water within the upper San Francisco estuary. The SWRCB ensures that these objectives are met, in part, by inclusion of water quality monitoring requirements into water rights decisions issued to DWR and USBR as conditions for operating the SWP and CVP, respectively. These requirements include minimum outflows, limits to water diversion by the SWP and CVP, and maximum allowable salinity levels. In addition, DWR and USBR are required to conduct a comprehensive monitoring program to determine compliance with the water quality objectives and report the findings to the SWRCB. Water quality objectives were issued in December 1999 by D-1641 (SWRCB, 1999) and revised by order WR 2000-02 in March 2000. Read more • To view prior years’ summaries or an archive of prior reports, please click here. The data generated by this monitoring are publically available, and can be found in full here. A partial and continually updated list of publications that have used this data can be found here. • 2015 Summary: Understanding the relative abundance and distribution of benthic invertebrates in the San Francisco Bay Delta Estuary

7. My Water Quality California Estuaries Portal ESTUARY MONITORING WORKGROUP OF THE CALIFORNIA WATER QUALITY MONITORING COUNCIL My Water Quality California Estuaries Portal ESTUARY MONITORING WORKGROUP OF THE CALIFORNIA WATER QUALITY MONITORING COUNCIL Learn the Issues Reporting Management Tools Portals CA Estuaries Learn the Issues Reporting Management Tools Portals CA Estuaries Benthic Invertebrates Reporting Requirements How are they monitored? Reporting Requirements How are they monitored? What Are they? Data Dashboard • SELECT DATA • Where? • Where? • Where? San Pablo Bay (Station D41) San Pablo Bay (Station D41) • Species A • Species B • Count • Species C • Species D • Species E • Download: GraphDataMetadata Suisun Bay (Station D7) Suisun Bay (Station D7) • Species A • Species B • Count • Species C • Species D • Species E • Download: GraphDataMetadata