20565
Habitat - Pipers Creek Natural Drainage System monitoring for Seattle Public Utilities
Habitat (Pipers Creek Natural Drainage System monitoring for Seattle Public Utilities)
Data Set
Published / External
20544
FE Legacy Data Sets
Project
In Work
2009-10-01
Relatively little scientific research or monitoring has occurred in the Pacific
Northwest or elsewhere on the biological effectiveness of restoration efforts in heavily
urbanized watersheds. With the overarching goal of improving ecological health of its
urban creeks, the City of Seattle is testing innovative approaches to stormwater
management. We report here on four years of pre-project monitoring data collected over
2006-2009 for one such technique: Natural Drainage Systems (NDS).
This low-impact development approach is designed to modify the quantity,
quality, and timing of stormwater delivery to creeks and other water bodies. Seattle
Public Utilities has proposed a large-scale NDS within the Pipers Creek basin of North
Seattle that will treat approximately 60% of the Venema Creek sub-basin. The focus of
NOAAs research effort has been to develop appropriate monitoring parameters and
collect baseline data to evaluate the effectiveness of this major restoration action. Our
selection of study parameters was guided by specific project goals and includes measures
of physical habitat, contaminant loading, and in-stream biota.
We found that the biological health of Pipers Creek is poor compared to forested
streams in the Puget Sound region, but comparable to other urban streams in the City of
Seattle. The fish community is dominated by cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus clarki; scores
for the benthic index of biological integrity (B-IBI) range from very poor to poor; and
diatom assemblages are composed of a relatively high proportion of species tolerant of
high nutrient levels, organic enrichment, and sedimentation.
Despite poor stream health, densities of cutthroat trout in three of our five study
reaches were higher than many urban streams and approaching densities of cutthroat
found in natural streams. This may be due to the migratory nature of cutthroat trout, as
about half these fish were detected migrating from our study area to lower Piper Creek or
Puget Sound.
Results from heavy metal sampling were inconsistent. Zinc concentrations in
soil, black fly larvae, and mayfly nymphs collected from Pipers Creek study reaches were
significantly higher than for forested streams. We did not detect any differences in
copper concentrations between urban and non-urban streams.
We hypothesize that in-stream biological health will improve relative to current
baseline conditions following Venema NDS implementation, with treated reaches
beginning to more closely resemble forested conditions. Based on statistical power
analyses, we recommend that post-project monitoring focus on rate and taxonomic
composition metrics rather than simple density measurements. Given the City of
Seattles considerable investment of restoration funds towards NDSs, it is critical that
post-project data be collected so as to explicitly test these hypotheses.
Habitat typing, channel geometry, substrate, temperature.
Raw/field data, Monitoring or sensor data
Loaded by FGDC Metadata Uploader, batch 4691, 09-05-2013 16:23
These data are available to the public
Report: City of Seattle Natural Drainage Systems Pre-Project Monitoring on Pipers Creek - Final Report (Final project report to funding agency)
Theme
PARR Exclusion
Non-NOAA Funded
Theme
aquatic invertebrate
Theme
benthic
Theme
ecosystem
Theme
effectiveness monitoring
Theme
food web
Theme
growth
Theme
habitat
Theme
low impact development
Theme
periphyton
Theme
restoration
Theme
salmon
Theme
stormwater
Spatial
Pipers Creek
Northwest Fisheries Science Center
Seattle
WA
USA
Data Set
Document (digital)
In-Situ Instrument - In-Situ Instrument (not specified)
Platform Not Applicable
Not Applicable
Data Steward
2015-10-01
Person
Morley, Sarah
Sarah.Morley@noaa.gov
2725 Montlake Boulevard East
Seattle
WA
98112
206-860-6780
Distributor
2015-10-01
Organization
Northwest Fisheries Science Center
NWFSC
nmfs.nwfsc.metadata@noaa.gov
2725 Montlake Boulevard East
Seattle
WA
98112
USA
206-860-3200
http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov
NWFSC Home
Online Resource
Metadata Contact
2015-10-01
Person
Contact, Metadata
nmfs.nwfsc.metadata@noaa.gov
2725 Montlake Boulevard East
Seattle
WA
98112
USA
(206) 860-3433
Originator
2015-10-01
Person
Morley, Sarah
Sarah.Morley@noaa.gov
2725 Montlake Boulevard East
Seattle
WA
98112
206-860-6780
Point of Contact
2015-10-01
Person
Morley, Sarah
Sarah.Morley@noaa.gov
2725 Montlake Boulevard East
Seattle
WA
98112
206-860-6780
-122.3727
-122.3727
47.7109
47.7109
Pipers Creek: Creek in Northwest Seattle that drains a 1,835 acre watershed into Puget Sound.
Range
2006-04-03
2010-04-03
Unclassified
At this time, contact the Data Manager for information on obtaining access to this data set. In the near future, the NWFSC will strive to provide all non-sensitive data resources as a web service in order to meet the NOAA Data Access Policy Directive (https://nosc.noaa.gov/EDMC/PD.DA.php).
NA
Paper
Medium
These data were collected and processed in accordance with established protocols and best practices under the direction of the projects Principal Investigator. Contact the dataset Data Manager in section 3 for full QA/QC methodology.
No
10
Yes
No
No
0 days
No Delay
NCEI-MD
14
The Northwest Fisheries Science Center facilitates backup and recovery of all data and IT components which are managed by IT Operations through the capture of static (point-in-time) backup data to physical media. Once data is captured to physical media (every 1-3 days), a duplicate is made and routinely (weekly) transported to an offsite archive facility where it is maintained throughout the data's applicable life-cycle.
Applied standard survey methods to generate cross section and longitudinal surveys.
gov.noaa.nmfs.inport:20565
Robert Marsicek
2013-09-05T16:23:10
SysAdmin InPortAdmin
2022-08-09T17:11:06
2017-03-06
Northwest Fisheries Science Center
NWFSC
2725 Montlake Boulevard East
Seattle
WA
98112
USA
206-860-3200
http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov
1001
Public
No
2017-03-06
1 Year
2018-03-06