FY04/FY05 Project Overview
The Shaw Creek watershed has important fish, timber,
mining, and recreational resources. Its sustainable
development requires the understanding of hydrologic
processes. The Alaska Boreal Forest Council, with its
partners, established four automated hydrologic data-collection
stations in the watershed over the past several years.
This year we will continue our citizen-based water-quality
data collection and continuous hydrologic baseline monitoring.
Additionally, we will evaluate the results and characterize
critical hydrologic processes and their effects on road-building
and current development projects.
The Current Situation
Shaw Creek watershed, located along the Tanana River
between the Delta and Little Delta Rivers, is recognized
as important fish spawning and rearing habitat, contains
valuable timber and mining resources, wildlife habitat,
and recreational areas (ADNR 2000; Ridder 1989; Ridder
1994; Barton 1992). Sustainable management of these
resources requires knowledge of the hydrologic cycle,
since water is the driving force behind watershed processes
such as sediment transport, nutrient dynamics, and biological
activity.
A watershed assessment, providing a comprehensive overview
of conditions and trends that define baseline status,
is an initial element needed to effectively manage watershed
resources (USEPA 2001). The basic steps in a watershed
assessment involve baseline data collection, interpretation,
and reporting of results and recommendations (Watershed
Professionals Network 1999; USEPA, 2001).
ABFC's goal is to gather baseline data to aid in the
hydrologic assessment of Shaw Creek Watershed and neighboring
spring-fed streams in the Tanana Basin.
Understanding hydrologic processes requires years of
data collection and analysis. ABFC will continue to
collect the baseline environmental and hydrologic data
needed to address development concerns. For example,
understanding overflow ice processes is important in
design of access roads, river crossings and bridges
to be used for future mining, forest, and other watershed
development activities.
The data collected by the automated data collection
stations is available on the web at http://www.tanana-watershed.org/shaw_creek/shaw_creek.shtml
and is updated nearly continuously.
Shaw Creek is an extension of 2001's Upwelling
Study
Project Funding
State
of Alaska, Department of Environmental Conservation:
Alaska Clean Water Actions Grant
Matching
funds provided by ABFC and its partners.
Project Partners
Alaska Department of
Environmental Conservation
Alaska Department
of Fish & Game, Division of Sport Fish
Alaska Department
of Natural Resources, Division of Forestry
Alaska Dept. of
Natural Resources, Office of Habitat Management &
Permitting
Community Volunteers
GW Scientific,
Inc.
University of
Alaska Fairbanks, School of Fisheries & Ocean Sciences
Whitestone Farm
(Delta Junction, AK)
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