The federal hatcheries mark and tag fish that are released into the river or bay using a combination of coded wire tags (CWT) and adipose fin clipping. The number of fish tagged and the identifiers are reported to the RMPC which is part of the RMIS. The Regional Mark Processing Center (RMPC) provides essential services to international, state, federal, and tribal fisheries organizations involved in marking anadromous salmonids throughout the Pacific region. These services include regional coordination of some tagging and fin marking programs, maintenance of databases for Coded Wire Tag Releases, Recoveries, and Locations, as well as the dissemination of reports of these data in electronic or printed form when requested. These databases are known collectively as the Regional Mark Information System (RMIS).
The San Joaquin County & Delta Water Quality Coalition was established to help irrigated agriculture meet the requirements of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board's (RWQCB) Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program (ILRP) in San Joaquin County, Calaveras County and Contra Costa County. The Coalitions is operated and governed by the San Joaquin County Resource Conservation District. Under the ILRP that was originally adopted in July of 2003, farmers and ranchers that irrigate their land and have runoff from that irrigation or rainfall must belong to a coalition or apply for an individual discharge permit from the Regional Board directly.
The Environmental Monitoring Program (EMP) began in 1975 to conduct baseline and compliance monitoring of water quality, phytoplankton, zooplankton, and benthic invertebrates in the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary. This monitoring program was designed to track the impact of water diversions to the State Water Project (SWP) and Central Valley Project (CVP) on the Bay-Delta. In the decades since, EMP scientists have monitored these constituents at fixed and floating stations throughout the estuary and ensured compliance with state and federal mandates such as Water Right Decision 1641 (D-1641). In the years and decades since its inception, EMP has become one of the cornerstones for scientists' and managers' understanding of the pace and pattern of change in this critical ecosystem. By sampling water quality and biological communities concurrently, EMP has created a dataset that is uniquely useful in better understanding causal connections between physical, biological, and biogeochemical processes.
The Wetland Regional Monitoring Program (WRMP) Fish and Fish Habitat Monitoring project is a collaborative effort to track biological responses to tidal wetland restoration in the San Francisco Estuary. Monthly sampling is conducted across a network of benchmark, reference, and project restoration sites in the South Bay and North Bay, with the goal of evaluating how wetland restoration influences fish assemblages, habitat use, and ecological condition.
The study uses primarily otter trawls to monitor fish and macroinvertebrate communities. Standardized field methods align with those used in long-term monitoring programs to ensure comparability and data integration across regions. Environmental data, including water temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen, are collected in tandem with biological sampling to assess habitat quality and seasonal dynamics.
The program addresses WRMP Guiding Question #4: How do policies, programs, and projects to protect and restore tidal marshes affect the distribution, abundance, and health of fish and wildlife? The data support adaptive management, regulatory compliance, and science-based restoration planning by identifying key habitats, tracking restoration performance, and detecting regional patterns in species composition and abundance over time.
