CAKN Stream Monitoring Program 2013 Field Season Report

Simmons, Trey

The 2013 field season was marked by numerous difficulties that sharply curtailed data collection. Wilderness compliance issues interfered with several planned backcountry sampling campaigns in WRST and YUCH. Denial of helicopter use in some areas where it had been permitted in previous years prevented any sampling in those areas. Aviation procurement problems derailed several other planned trips in WRST. Compounding these problems was a serious shoulder injury sustained by the aquatic ecologist that prevented even road-based field work for much of the late summer and fall, including the sole remaining sampling trip planned for YUCH. Despite these difficulties, during the 2013 field season the Central Alaska Network (CAKN) Stream Monitoring Program made 88 site visits to 40 unique stream sites in DENA and WRST (Figure 1), with each site being sampled one to four times from early May through late September. However, no data were collected from YUCH. The data collected included instantaneous water chemistry, stream flow, water chemistry samples, benthic macroinvertebrates, stable isotope samples, habitat data and environmental DNA samples. Continuous year-round temperature monitoring at 22 sites across the network is ongoing. Active layer depth and continuous soil temperature data were collected for the 5th year at one of the two CALM plots in WRST. A timelapse camera was installed for the second year at Jack Creek in WRST to monitor flow, turbidity and the timing of freeze-up and break-up. Four site visits were made to the cooperative stream gage on the Nabesna River just outside of WRST to perform station maintenance and collect discharge data. This gage is operated as a cooperative effort between CAKN, The US Fish and Wildlife Service and the NOAA River Forecast Center. A final version of the CAKN Stream Monitoring Program 2011 Annual Report will be available as a Natural Resources Technical Report soon (Annual Reports for 2006-2010, along with a number of Resource Briefs, are available at the CAKN Streams and Rivers website - http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/units/cakn/vitalsign.cfm?vsid=72). The CAKN Stream Monitoring Protocol, including a Protocol Narrative and 19 Standard Operating Procedures, is in peer review; a final version should be in publication as a Natural Resource Report within several months.