Mid-Klamath Tributary Streamflow Monitoring 

Mid-Klamath and Salmon Rivers tributary flow data in KRIS were provided by Jon B. Grunbaum of the Klamath and Six Rivers National Forests, Happy Camp Office.  These data were originally collected and held by: (1) Orleans Ranger District of the Six Rivers National Forest, (2) Happy Camp District of the Klamath National Forest and, (3) the Karuk Tribe of California - Department of Natural Resources.  All flow data were quality assured by the Klamath and Six Rivers National Forests, Happy Camp Office.  Flow data were collected periodically between 1996 and 2002 in order to help characterize the flow regimes of these tributaries. Because flow data were not collected synoptically or at the same time each year, establishing base flows for tributaries would take a more methodical effort.

 

Mid-Klamath Tributary Bioassessment

In summer of 2002, the field crews from the Karuk Tribe's Natural Resources Department conducted a detailed study of fish distribution in the lower portions of Middle Klamath tributaries and in the coldwater refugia in the Klamath River at the mouths of those creeks. Tributaries were visited approximately once per week and a variety of information was collected (not every time and every site), including: a snorkel survey of lower 3 pools on each creek and the refugia in mainstem at creek mouths, water temperatures, water quality, creek pool depths. Photographs of the sites were also taken. The Karuk Tribe's data were sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office (USFWS) in Arcata, where they were assimilated into a larger USFWS database by Mark Magneson. The entire dataset will be analyzed in a USFWS report, but this report was not completed in time to be included in KRIS version 3.

 

Middle Klamath Basin Maps Now in New KRIS Map Viewer

All KRIS database projects have companion ArcView projects for the geographic area covered and most themes are now included in KRIS Version 3.0, which has a new built in KRIS Map Viewer. Nearly all map themes have a readily-accessible companion metadata file that describes the map theme and provides contact information for the source of that theme. If KRIS is installed on your computer's hard drive and you are viewing maps using the KRIS Map Viewer (the map tab), you can view metadata for a layer by clicking on a layer in the map legend to make it the active theme and then clicking the "M" (metadata) button on the toolbar. If you are browsing KRIS on the www.krisweb.com Internet site, or viewing the web pages included on the KRIS CD-ROMs, you can view map metadata by clicking on a metadata link at the link at the bottom of a map page. 

The Karuk Tribe and Salmon River Restoration Council added map information for the Middle Klamath and Salmon River Basins. These data were originally in ArcView but have been captured and integrated into the KRIS Version 3.0 database, which has a built-in KRIS Map Viewer. The Middle Klamath KRIS maps also include data from the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), Humboldt State University, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Salmon Mountain Forestry. To learn more about fish distribution, fire and ERFO site themes from the Middle Klamath see note.

Klamath River Basin Fishery Restoration Program Mid-Term Review

Kier Associates produced the Mid program Evaluation for the Klamath River Basin Fishery Restoration Program (Kier Assoc., 1999) for the Klamath Task Force and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This project was in part focused on changes in habitat conditions since the inception of the Klamath Restoration Program in 1986 and also in the success of  Program investments in restoration projects. Kier Associates expanded the scope to include the success of restoration projects funded by other agencies as well. The Klamath National Forest (KNF) and Six Rivers National Forests assisted by providing photos of restoration projects. Photographs of projects and stream conditions were taken in the spring of 1997 following the January 1997 storm by Kier Associates as part of the project and included for review in KRIS. For detailed description of habitat trends by sub basin see Appendix 5 of  Kier Associates (1999). 

U.S. Forest Service Fishery Restoration Project Photos

The Klamath National Forest Fisheries Program provided photographs of restoration projects in Beaver Creek, Indian Creek and Elk Creek to Kier Associates for the mid program evaluation of the Klamath River Basin Fishery Restoration Program and for use in KRIS. The photos were taken prior to and after the January 1997 storm event. The Klamath National Forest has an extensive history of stream restoration and project evaluation (see Olson and West, 1989). Six Rivers National Forest carried out its own inventory of instream structures in Camp Creek, Bluff Creek and Red Cap Creek in September 1997. Photos from this inventory were made available for use in KRIS. Six Rivers National Forest has been implementing habitat improvement projects in these streams since 1986.

Klamath Basin Cooperative Spawning Ground Surveys

The California Department of Fish and Game annually coordinates spawning ground surveys in major and minor tributaries of the Klamath River above its convergence with the Trinity River. Not all tributaries are surveyed each year. Other entities helping to collect data include Klamath National Forest, Six Rivers National Forest, Americorp, Salmon River Restoration Council, Yreka High School, Discovery High School, Scott River High School and Etna High School.  The annual report issued by CDFG which purveys these results is the Klamath Basin Fall Chinook Spawner Escapement, In-river Harvest and Run Size Estimate (CDFG, 2003). Most tributary population estimates are based on redd surveys except for Bogus Creek, Scott River, Salmon River and Shasta River. Bogus Creek has a weir where chinook are marked and population estimates are derived from mark/recapture techniques are used during carcass surveys. Mark/recapture techniques are also used on the Salmon River and Scott River where carcasses on spawning beds are marked and compared with subsequent surveys. A counting weir is used to estimate populations of fall chinook on the Shasta River.

Klamath Basin Cooperative Summer Steelhead Surveys

The California Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Forest Service have cooperated to count summer steelhead annually in Klamath and Trinity River basin tributaries. The early data in KRIS was provided by the California Department of Fish and Game Endangered Salmonids Coordinator Eric Gerstung. Counts may reflect complete dive surveys of streams or may be an extrapolation based on dive surveys of sample reaches. Data from counts may be published separately by the U.S. Forest Service. The Klamath National Forest coordinates an annual Salmon River spring chinook survey, which also includes summer steelhead and trend reports are published periodically. Shasta Trinity National Forest has assumed responsibility for the North Fork Trinity, New River and Canyon Creek (Everest, 1997). Results of annual dive surveys are available on the fisheries web pages of the Shasta Trinity National Forest web site. Garrison (2002) reported summer steelhead counts in the South Fork Trinity River. See Kier Associates (1999) for specific discussions of recent Klamath River summer steelhead trends (search on key words summer steelhead in Adobe Acrobat).

Klamath National Forest Storm Damage Assessment Reports
 
Charts in KRIS related to road failures and flood damage in the Middle Klamath are from data collected by the Klamath National Forest (KNF). Landslide and road failure raw data was not available for use in KRIS; therefore, estimates of the number of these features by watershed were estimated by counting points on maps. The Effects of the 1997 Floods on the Klamath National Forest (De La Fuente, 1998) provides an in depth analysis of the types and locations of landslides and road failures on the forest. The January 1997 storm caused over $27 million dollars damage to the KNF road system. Funding for repair of the roads and other forest infrastructure damaged by the storm was provided through the Emergency Relief for Federally Owned Roads (ERFO). Flood damage sites, known as ERFO sites, were predominantly road failures and 712 sites were funded for treatment. De La Fuente (1998) considered precipitation, flows, storm recurrence interval, elevation, geology, slope and previous management for links to flood damage. The geographic area of the study was from the Trinity Alps, in the headwaters of the South Fork Salmon River, north through the Marble Mountains and into the Indian Creek and Beaver Creek watersheds in the Siskiyou Mountains. See an excerpted synopsis of the KNF study from the Mid Program Evaluation of the Klamath River Basin Fishery Restoration Program (Kier Assoc., 1999).
 
Vegetation Types and Timber Size Classes From 1994 Landsat Imagery

The vegetation and timber types shown for the Lower Klamath sub basin were derived from Landsat multi-spectral images taken in 1994. They were provided to Humboldt State University by NASA as part of the Mission to Planet Earth program. The Humboldt State University Spatial Analysis Laboratory analyzed the image using the Wildlife Habitat Classification method under the direction of Dr. Larry Fox. To learn more about vegetation and timber types, see the Vegetation Type Background page. For use in KRIS, vegetation and timber types were simplified into ten classifications. Vegetation classifications are:

Very Large Trees = 36" in diameter or greater
Large Trees = 24-36" in diameter
Medium Trees = 11-24" in diameter
Small Trees = 6-11" in diameter
Small Trees/Shrubs = Trees 1-6" in diameter and shrubs
Shrubs
Grass
Rock/Soil
Marsh/Meadow
Snow/Ice

This simpler classification provides an easy to understand index of watershed disturbance in coastal watersheds but difficulties may be encountered in interior areas of the Klamath Basin. Large components of early seral stage conditions (i.e.. shrubs, grasses and bare soil) are often associated with recent logging disturbance in coastal areas whereas the same signatures in interior Klamath watersheds may be as a result of site conditions. The resolution of Landsat images is about 30 meters. An accuracy assessment for the Klamath Basin is currently underway by HSU in a project funded by USFWS Yreka. Problems can arise from topographic shading causing some over estimation of old growth, for example. Size classes in the range of 20-30 inches may also be under-represented. The USFS vegetation classification data using one hectare resolution and providing forest community character is also included for comparison.

Middle Klamath Tributary Water Temperature Data

There now hundreds of water temperature datasets for Klamath River basin locations in KRIS Version 3.0. Mainstem Klamath River and Middle Klamath Basin tributary water temperature data has been collected by numerous entities and agencies including Klamath National Forest, Six Rivers National Forest, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Karuk Tribe, PacifiCorp, the California State Water Resources Control Board and the California Department of Fish and Game. Much of the data for years before 1995 for both the Klamath and tributary basins was assimilated by Tim Mahan on behalf of the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board and provided for use in KRIS.

A water temperature database for the years 1997-2002 was contributed to KRIS by the Klamath National Forest Supervisors Office.  The dataset covers Klamath National Forest landholdings in the Middle Klamath sub-basin, as well as the Scott River sub-basin.  The original source database includes the 165 sites across the Klamath National Forest.  The version of the database included in KRIS includes 68 sites in the Klamath basin, with 41 in Middle Klamath sub-basin tributaries, 12 in the mainstem Klamath River, and 15 in the Scott River sub-basin.  An ArcView shapefile of monitoring locations is included in KRIS and descriptions of monitoring site locations can also be viewed as a table.

The region-wide temperature data assimilation by the Institute for Forest and Watershed Management (IFWM) at Humboldt State University, formerly known as the Forest Science Project, aided data acquisition for Version 3.0 greatly. IFWM published an access database of  stream temperature monitoring data for the northern California coast (Lewis et al., 2000). The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Arcata Field Office has deployed automated temperature sensors throughout the Klamath and Trinity River watersheds, including the a number of stations along the mainstem Klamath River. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has published numerous reports which utilize the water temperature data they collect (Guillien, 2003; Zedonis, 2003). Water temperature references used in KRIS are based on Pacific Northwest wide literature on salmonids and temperature (Armor, 1990; McCullough, 1999; Sullivan et al., 2000; Welsh, 2001). See the KRIS Temperature Background page for more information.

Siskiyou County Schools Klamath Tributary Water Temperature Data

Water temperature data for 1997-1999 was also provided by Siskiyou County Schools which gathered data as part of a State Water Resources Control Board 319H project administered by the USFWS Yreka Klamath Field Office. Water temperatures of Bogus Creek were measured by the students of Bogus Elementary School with assistance from local community member Paul Lucky and Trudy Rilling, Siskiyou County Schools Watershed Education Coordinator. The locations of Hobotemp gauges are as follows: B6= Bogus Creek above convergence with Cold Creek, B7=Bogus below Cold Creek, COLB2 = Cold Creek upstream of Lucky Powerhouse at walking bridge, C3=Cold Creek at Lucky Power plant, C4=Cold Creek at Lucky Fish Ladder, C5= Lower Cold Creek above convergence with Bogus, BOGD9 = Bogus at Convict Fish Ladder, BOGE10 = Bogus at Desavado Ranch and BOGF11 = Bogus at Iron Gate Hatchery. Photos were also provided for use in KRIS by Trudy Rilling.

Photos of the Klamath Basin by Michael Hentz

Naturalist Michael Hentz has photographed the Klamath River and its watershed as a vocation and as a passion. His photos of the Klamath River watershed for the World Wildlife Fund serve to document riverine and upland conditions in this area recognized globally for its biodiversity. Hentz also boated down the Klamath River from its headwater tributary, the Sprague River, through Upper Klamath Lake, through several reservoirs and down the river to the ocean. Michael donated the use of his photos for KRIS Version 3.0 but requests credit for any use outside KRIS.