The Intensively Monitored Watershed program is a basin-scale validation monitoring effort to evaluate the effectiveness of salmon habitat restoration activities in increasing the production of salmon as recommended in the Washington State Comprehensive Monitoring Strategy (Crawford, et al 2002). The base program is funded by the Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SFRB), administered through the Washington Department of Ecology, and implemented by the IMW partners. The basic premise of the Intensively Monitored Watersheds (IMW) program is that the complex relationships controlling salmon response to habitat conditions can best be understood by concentrating monitoring and research efforts at a few locations. The data required to evaluate the response of fish populations to management actions that affect habitat quality or quantity are difficult and expensive to collect. Focusing efforts on a relatively few locations enables enough data on physical and biological attributes of a system to be collected to develop a comprehensive understanding of the factors affecting salmon production in freshwater. The ultimate objective of nearly all efforts intended to improve salmon habitat is to increase the abundance of the fish. Therefore, the most meaningful measurements of the effectiveness of a restoration program are those related to the performance of the fish during their period of freshwater residency; from adult spawning through smolting of their offspring. Because salmon use multiple habitat types during freshwater rearing and may move throughout the watershed to locate these habitats, the spatial scale at which an evaluation is conducted should be large enough to encompass all the habitats required for the salmon to complete this phase of their life history. The size of the area required to capture the full range of habitats needed to complete freshwater rearing will vary by species. The IMW Program consists of three elements: Studies at three complexes of three or four watersheds each focusing on coho salmon and steelhead trout (Figure 1), Evaluation of the effects of estuary restoration on juvenile chinook salmon growth and survival on the Skagit River Estuary. A Pacific Northwest-wide landscape classification intended to guide the application of IMW results to other watersheds. The classification is based on similarity of physical and biological characteristics to the watersheds included in the IMW project. Watersheds which have biophysical characteristics and patterns of human activities comparable to IMW sites will be locations where IMW results can be extended with the greatest degree of certainty. This effort is led by the Northwest Fisheries Science Center.
