Monitoring Methods
Hydrology
- Continuous Water Level
- Continuous Water Quality
- Discrete Water Quality
- Nutrients and Primary Productivity
- Flow and Hydrodynamics
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Hydrology
Sunrise at Nisqually estuary
The goal of hydrology monitoring is to quantify changes in water levels, water quality, and hydrodynamics at multiple scales that result from restoration, and to relate the changes to physical and biological responses.
Hydrology and water quality are primary drivers of wetland processes (e.g., sediment transport and channel development), habitat structure (e.g., channel allometry and channel complexity), and ecological functions (e.g., nutrient circulation and food web support). Inundation regimes, in combination with elevations and sediment characteristics, are primary drivers of the vegetation and invertebrate community dynamics and also determine available access times for fish and bird communities. Water quality is also an important determinant of habitat quality (dissolved oxygen, temperature, conductivity/salinity, turbidity, pH, and chlorophyll a) for aquatic species.
We present five methods for hydrology and water quality monitoring: