Searchable On-Line Database for Watershed Health

for New Mexico Watershed Groups, Schools, And Agencies

New Mexico needs an on-line database that tracks watershed conditions and trends. The database will have many benefits such as:

  • providing public access to locally-gathered data by schools and watershed groups which will enhance stewardship awareness and behavior,
  • the ability to store and analyze data to track trends, screen for unusual events, and evaluate efficacy of restoration activities to increase depth of knowledge on watershed health,
  • a quality assurance process for monitoring program development for watershed groups which leads to levels of confidence the reliability of the data,
  • enabling watershed groups an easy way to store and analyze data they gather to evaluate the effectiveness of efforts to restore watershed health,
  • a forum for formulating and establishing a New Mexico Monitoring Council that will reduce duplication in data management efforts and lead to potential budget savings.
  • Increased involvement of community residents in restoration and stewardship practices.

River Source will provide facilitation, quality assurance and data management services to create a coherent and accessible data system for watershed health in New Mexico. River Source runs several volunteer watershed monitoring programs for watershed groups, schools, and government agencies with annual or more frequent data collectors at over 35 stream segments in New Mexico. All of these programs have quality control requirements.

This project will focus on creating a database that these 35 groups can begin entering data. The on-line database will enable hundreds of data providers and users to go to one place to look for and analyze data going back over a decade or longer.

For example, CimarronHigh School teacher Leigh Hedderman gathers river ecology data on a monthly basis as part of the New Mexico Watershed Watch program which is run by River Source and sponsored by New Mexico Department of Game & Fish and 17 schools. At a recent teacher training Ms. Hedderman and several other teachers agreed that they face a common challenge in organizing, interpreting, and sharing their data with the public. In many cases these data sets are 4-5 years long and are stored on separate spreadsheets for each year. They are challenged by the lack of time to analyze the data as a complete data set and make it available in useful ways to local watershed residents and watershed groups. Data gathered by Cimarron High School students of Leigh Hedderman and other teacher in the program will be put online to reduce time finding old MSExcel files and to deepen stewardship knowledge and behavior by the public.

Data scope: Physical, biological, and chemical measurements will be entered in the database. Examples include water temperature, turbidity, benthic macroinvertebrate community presence and absence of sensitive organisms, and aquatic habitat observations, and geomorphology data. For example, comparing 3 years of cross-sections will help people learn if river channels are aggrading or degrading, an important factor in water retention in the watershed.

For instance, water temperature or turbidity measurements over nine months or 3 years can be graphed in bar chart depending on the time period of interest. Photopoints of restoration projects can be displayed in two year time series before and after the restoration work is done.

Timeline: beta-test preliminary version of website in August 2007. Launch website publicly in January 2008.

Task list for year 1

  • Planning meetings with data users (teachers, restoration practitioners such as non-profit groups such as Quivira Coalition, NMED, NMDGF, RPMC, Ruidoso RiverKeepers, Cimarron Watershed Alliance, Galisteo Watershed Partnership
  • Create steering committee to guide website development
  • RFP process to select contractor to build website, select contractor
  • Develop beta version to test withCimarronSchools and CWA.
  • Populate database with historic data from the NM WW program
  • Train data collectors on quality control steps for data entry
  • Beta test the use of the database by data collectors and entry people
  • Training for data users to mine the database for data and do interpretation for the purpose of reporting on effectiveness of restoration or tracking resource trends.
  • Revise database design based on comments from participants in beta-test workshops
  • Go live with website for public with publicity – January 2008

Budget:

Year 1covers year one design, building and beta testing with a launch by January 2008. Years 2 and 3 include training of data providers and users to make sure the database will be used widely.

Budget for year 1 / Cost / CWA funding / Funding request to partners
Meetings to plan data pathways with data providers and users (data quality criteria, data types and data analysis tools needed) / $2,576 / $2,576 / $0
RFP process to select database and web-interface contractors, hire and manage contractors / $983 / $983 / $0
Enter historic data for CimarronHigh School, other WW schools, Rio Puerco Management Committee / $2,017 / $2,017 / $0
Test first build of the web site with Cimarron students and CWA / $695 / $695 / $0
Publicity in multiple newsletters and websites / $1,154 / $1,154 / $0
Training for watershed groups, teachers and restoration practitioners to upload data / $898 / $898 / $0
Training for data users to produce reports on trend assessment & measurable results / $2,341 / $2,341 / $0
Database contractor / $4,000 / $136 / $3,864
Website contractor / $6,000 / $0 / $6,000
Mileage / $623 / $0 / $623
Website hosting / $300 / $0 / $300
Total project budget / $21,587 / $10, 800 / $10,800
Budget for year 2 & 3 / Cost / CWA funding / Funding request to partners
Three workshops for restoration practioners, watershed groups and agency staff / $2,533 / $0 / $2,533
Quality assurance audit of database plus publication of annual report of selected results for database users & funders * / $1,802 / $0 / $1,802
Site hosting and annual minor adjustments to database to maintain and improve functions and uses of database* / $1,199 / $0 / $1,199
$5,533 / $0 / $5,533

* These are reoccurring costs

On-going annual expenses are expected to total approximately $3,001. Funding for the on-going maintenance will be sought from watershed groups, government agencies and non-profit foundations. A formation of a New Mexico Monitoring Council composed of watershed groups, government agencies, and restoration practitioners will be convened.

What we need from you?

Support the Watershed Health Database project with funding or donating your time to make this project possible. We need to form a monitoring council and receive funding to make this project possible.

  • Watershed groups & non-profits: Please commit in the range of $250 - $1,000 annually to make this valuable outreach, education and monitoring tool possible.
  • Government agencies: Please commit funding of $1,000 as a minimum in in year one to get this the website developed. In years 2 and 3 consider a reduced amount if necessary.
  • Foundations and Legislators: Would you please imagine being able to look in one place and easily find watershed health data? This tool will increase stewardship and restoration practices and reduce costs for monitoring restoration work. Please consider contributing to this cause.

How can you contribute to this project?

Contact Rich Schrader to offer support or ask questions. Please contact him at:

River Source

505-660-7928

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By River Source, v.10/12/2018