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inletkeeper

Protecting Alaska's Cook Inlet watershed and the life it sustains since 1995.

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Stream Temperature Data Collection Standards and Protocol for Alaska

Cook Inletkeeper and collaborators at the Alaska Natural Heritage Program, University of Alaska Anchorage have established minimum standards for stream temperature data collection to generate data useful for regional-scale analyses (see table below). By identifying minimum data standards, our objective is to encourage rapid, but structured, growth in comparable stream temperature monitoring efforts in Alaska that will be used to understand current and future trends in thermal regimes.

Stream Temperature Data Collection Standards and Protocol for Alaska was developed to help the reader understand our justification for selecting, and motivation for establishing, minimum standards for stream temperature data collection.  The protocol that follows provides detailed instructions on implementing these minimum standards. We hope that this project will encourage data collection efforts that will be useful for understanding current and future temperature trends in Alaska’s freshwater systems.

In 2015, Stream temperature data collection standards for Alaska: Minimum standards to generate data useful for regional-scale analyses was published in the Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies.

You can learn more about water temperature monitoring efforts in Alaska at the Alaska Online Aquatic Temperature Site (AKOATS), which is a comprehensive statewide inventory of current and historic continuous monitoring locations for stream and lake temperature.

Minimum data collection standards for regional analysis of stream thermal regimes.

Data Logger Accuracy ±0.25oC
Measurement range -4o to 37oC (24o to 99oF)
Data Collection Sampling frequency 1 hour interval
<p">Sampling period/duration 1 calendar month
Quality Assurance and Quality Control Accuracy checks water bath at two temperatures: 0oC and 20oC before and after field deployment to verify logger accuracy (varies ≤ 0.25oC compared with a NIST-certified thermometer)
Site selection five measurements across the stream width to verify that the site is well-mixed (i.e. varies ≤ 0.25oC)
Data evaluation remove erroneous data from the dataset
Data Storage File formats CSV format in 2 locations
Metadata unique site identifier

agency/organization name and contact

datum, latitude and longitude

sample frequency

stored with temperature data

Sharing quality-controlled hourly data

Support for this effort was provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on behalf of the Western Alaska Landscape Conservation Cooperative.

 

More on Habitat

  • Overview
  • Stream Temperature Monitoring Network
  • Stream Temperature Data Collection Standards and Protocol for Alaska
  • Cold Water Refugia
  • Real-time Temperature Sites
    • Anchor River
    • Crooked Creek
    • Deshka River
    • Russian River

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