Hinton, S., Ramsden, K., Clifton, B. and Mickelson, E., 2018. Skagit River Basin Habitat Status & Trends for Freshwater Rearing Targets. Skagit River System Cooperative, La Conner, WA. pp. 31.

The Skagit Chinook Recovery Plan (2005) emphasized the need to protect and restore freshwater rearing habitats, and the processes that formed these habitats at the watershed, floodplain, and reach levels. It set-up goals of no net loss (protection) plus habitat improvement (restoration) in the Skagit Basin. It also recognized the need to monitor the status and trends of these processes and subsequent habitat values.
Comparing updated and historic data establishes a common framework for understanding and communicating habitat trends. It highlights the pressures and stressors that degrade habitat, and directs adaptive management efforts. Unfortunately, Skagit basin monitoring had been diffuse and unorganized, providing insufficient information to determine if habitat quantity and quality had increased or decreased over time.
To coordinate and focus monitoring efforts, the Skagit Watershed Council Monitoring and Adaptive Management Subcommittee is developing a basin wide Monitoring and Adaptive Management Plan with the following objectives:
1) Fill gaps in metrics and protocols.
2) Generate a third-time step of habitat status to collect trend information and build on the existing monitoring priorities in the recovery plan.
3) Use alternative planning resources (e.g. causation analyses; course corrections to strategies) to integrate outcomes into future iterations of the monitoring plan.
A consistent and meaningful regional habitat monitoring program is also a priority among state and federal agencies. In Phase I of the Chinook Monitoring and Adaptive Management Project, teams around the Puget Sound created common frameworks based on localized recovery plans to compare fish populations, habitats, pressures and recovery strategies (summarized from Beamer 2017). The Skagit Watershed Council Monitoring and Adaptive Management Subcommittee based their indicators on the Skagit Chinook Recovery Plan (2005). Subsequently, the Puget Sound Partnership and NOAA released indicator lists as well (Beechie et al. 2015).