Ambient Project, Snohomish County

Snohomish County has identified three goals for its water quality monitoring program: 1) evaluate whether best management practices or habitat restoration actions are effective at specific sites, 2) assess the current status of stream sites in the region, and 3) identify regional trends in stream condition. An efficient sampling design that would support all three goals involves replicate sampling at targeted sites and single samples from regional status and trend monitoring sites. Assuming an annual sampling effort of approximately 50 macroinvertebrate samples, 18 are allocated to targeted sampling sites (6sites x 3 replicates) and 15 samples each for both status and trend monitoring. For status and trend monitoring, sites are grouped into three geographic regions to simplify field sampling. Within each area, 15 randomly selected sites are sampled each year to assess status. For trend monitoring, 15 sites are randomly selected only during the first year of sampling then those same sites are revisited every third year.

Contact: Robert Plotnikoff, Robert.Plotnikoff@snoco.org, 425-262-2015