| Abstract | | The Rutherford Reach Restoration project provides a unique opportunity for long-term monitoring of a 4.5 mile reach of the Napa River in response to a comprehensive treatment aimed at enhancing habitat value and reducing rates of fine sediment production on an incised North Coast alluvial channel draining to the San Francisco Bay estuary. The monitoring design provides for an annual rapid assessment of major changes along the thalweg and less frequent comprehensive geomorphic and habitat assessments at selected cross-section transects and longitudinal profile sub-reaches. The physical habitat assessment aims to capture potential increases in complexity due to the installation of instream structures, riparian revegetation, and potentially as a result of agricultural levee and land use setbacks. These results are integrated with ongoing fish surveys that document functional redds relative to pool-riffle distributions. With Phase 1 of the project breaking ground in summer 2009 and likely several years of implementation ahead, this monitoring framework promises adaptive management benefits in refining future phase designs and guiding long-term project maintenance
|
