EcoAtlas

Contaminant Data Display and Download Tool or CD3  is an innovative visualization tool for accessing water quality data for the San Francisco Bay-Delta and northern montane regions. It is the primary tool for accessing and downloading the San Francisco Bay Regional Monitoring Program’s (RMP) long-term dataset and other project data stored in SFEI's Regional Data Center (RDC).

SFEI’s Wetland Science Focus Area’s Director, Josh Collins, is a leader in the coordination of statewide science advisory teams and acquiring funding to develop monitoring and assessment tools that support the State’s Wetland and Riparian Area Protection Policy.

In 2014, SFEI and the Santa Valley Water District launched a collaborative partnership aimed at sharing experience, knowledge and resources, and working toward a shared vision of watershed management. Through this partnership, the District has asked SFEI to develop a set of online tools to: 1) identify opportunities for multi-benefit management actions in and along the channels managed by the District; and 2) track the impacts of those actions towards meeting established management targets.

This project is funded by a USEPA wetland development grant (2015-2017) to develop a recommended funding and business model for the EcoAtlas toolset.   EcoAtlas is a framework and toolset recommended in the State's Wetland and Riparian Area Monitoring Plan (WRAMP) of the California Wetland Monitoring Workgroup (CWMW). The tools enable users to visualize and assess the distribution, abundance, diversity, and condition of surface waters in a landscape or watershed context.  The Business Plan project is developing several overview and planning memos and a final, compiled recommendation for an EcoAtlas business plan. Those documents are made available here as they are completed.

EcoAtlas dashboards are comprehensive views of qualified information provided by Project Tracker and the California Aquatic Resource Inventory (CARI). These dynamic visualizations help measure the cumulative benefits of public policies and programs for California's aquatic resources. 

Fire recovery in the Russian River Watershed will benefit from a common online platform for compiling, visualizing, and interpreting many kinds of environmental data available from diverse federal, state, regional, and local sources. Providing such a platform is one objective of the Russian River Regional Monitoring Program (R3MP).

New Project Tracker online forms enhance EcoAtlas' regional capacity for habitat restoration project tracking, assessment and reporting. Partners can now upload and edit project information and approve projects for display on EcoAtlas. Project Tracker meets the important need of providing tools for partners to manage their projects and display information on EcoAtlas, a tool for visualizing the condition and extent of California's aquatic resources.

The key benefits of Project Tracker include:

SFEI, on behalf of the Wetland Monitoring Workgroup is releasing a series of technology tools to help with aquatic resource protection and management. “These new online tools will empower Californians to access information about the value and health of their wetlands,” said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld. “The release of the Wetlands Portal and EcoAtlas represents a multi-agency collaborative effort to inform the public and support better aquatic resource management.” 

New data layers and Landscape Profile mode have been added to EcoAtlas (ecoatlas.org), an online tool for visualizing the abundance, diversity, and condition of wetlands, along with the project activities that are affecting the landscape. Enhancements include:

This project consists of an effort to enhance EcoAtlas to serve as the shared and primary point of collection for project data, then actively transfer the data to Delta View.

This project expands the current capabilities of the wetland project tracking system for the monitoring and assessment of California’s aquatic resources to meet the project tracking, assessment, and reporting needs for current and planned habitat restoration in the San Francisco Bay-Delta and Central Valley.

How do you know whether your project assessment, conducted by the California Rapid Assessment Method, reflects an improvement that is aligned with ecosystem goals? Habitat Development Curves (HDCs) help to visualize and measure the performance of on-the-ground projects relative to ecosystem goals.

With funding from the State Coastal Conservancy, SFEI staff developed the eCRAM data entry forms for uploading BBE assessments into the CRAM database. Public assessments can be viewed on EcoAtlas' interactive map and downloaded using the CRAM filter tool.

In addition to making water quality data accessible, SFEI’s GIS Team compiles spatial datasets and metadata that are available for downloading from SFEI’s Data Center page.

Caltrans funded this wetlands research to fill important gaps in knowledge about the ability of the California Rapid Assessment Method (CRAM) to assess small wetlands, wetlands stress, and the rate at which wetland restoration projects develop into mature habitats. Caltrans proposed specific tasks based on the research priorities provided by the CRAM Commitee of the statewide California Wetlands Monitoring Workgroup.

The Montezuma wetland restoration project is returning ~2,000 acres of diked baylands to tidal, seasonal, and managed wetlands in an eastern portion of Suisun Bay near the town of Collinsville, California in Solano County.

The California Wetlands Portal, one of the State of California’s My Water Quality portals, is the common data management system for the State’s primary wetland protection policies and programs, including the 401 Certification and WDR Programs, the proposed Wetland and Riparian Protection Policy, and the State’s No-Net-Loss Policy.

The Santa Rosa Plain WRAMP project demonstrated the use of the State’s standardized monitoring and assessment tools in a North Coast watershed setting and described how the results can support watershed based management and planning decisions to protect and manage the state’s wetlands at a landscape scale. 

How can someone click on a map and almost immediately determine the upstream catchment area to that designated point? StreamStats is a web service provided by the US Geological Survey to perform that critical function.

The service can be seamlessly incorporated into web maps to enhance their catchment-finding abilities. In July 2015, USGS released a new version of their StreamStats service, which SFEI recently incorporated into EcoAtlas.

The latest release of EcoAtlas (v4.1) includes two new map enhancements:

An accurate basemap is fundamental to watershed planning and assessments. The California Aquatic Resources Inventory, or CARI, offers such a basemap for aquatic resource identification and classification. But to keep it current and enhance its details, SFEI-ASC must leverage local knowledge. The new CARI Editor promotes regional stewardship and allows users to submit updates, deletions or new features for streams and wetlands.