Austin Creek Watershed
Source: Austin Creek Watershed Assessment
Documents
The Austin Creek Watershed Restoration Program.
The Sotoyome RCD has developed an innovative
program focused on assessing the habitat conditions
and restoration priorities in the Austin Creek
Watershed by establishing baseline monitoring on
several significant tributaries, assessing the
watershed based on historic and current land use
records, and providing outreach to landowners and
residents about watershed health.
The Lower Austin Creek Migration Improvement Program
is based on a unique partnership between gravel mining interests, government agencies, local residents, and non-governmental organizations (including NOAA, DFG, CCC, TU and Bohan & Canelis). Their innovative approach to restoration is designed to improve both migration and rearing habitat conditions for endangered coho salmon, as well as threatened Chinook salmon and steelhead.
The Austin Creek Rural Road Improvement Program.
The delivery of road-related sediment to a
stream is analogous to death by a thousand
paper cuts. In any watershed, runoff from
hundreds of miles of poorly drained,
unpaved roads affects both water quality and
aquatic habitat by delivering large volumes
of fine sediment to the stream system. The
steep terrain, erosive soils, and high annual
precipitation of the Austin Creek Watershed
exacerbate this process, causing serious impacts to a variety of fish habitat conditions.
The Austin Creek Watershed Assessment
uses a Geographic Information System (GIS) to analyse the features of the Austin Creek watershed, document past land uses and trends in the system. The focus of the analysis is erosion problems, areas of major vegetation changes and other features related to water quality and anadromous fish habitats. The assessment also includes recommendations to improve water quality and aquatic habitats.
The Russian River Coastal Tributary Improvement Program
inventoried and assessed watershed features and conditions, established monitoring sites and collected monitoring data, involved community members, agencies and private property owners, and integrated the information from the assessment into an action plan consisting of Best Management Practices (BMPs), revegetation and riparian enhancement projects and recommendations for continued actions to improve water quality and salmonid habitat in the target watersheds.
Stream Survey Reports
California Department of Fish & Game
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