NOAA ISEMP - Watershed Sciences - Bridge Creek, Oregon LiDAR Survey, 2005

These lidar data were collected on September 27, 2005, for the NOAA Fisheries Service - Northwest Fisheries Science Center as part of the ISEMP (Integrated Status and Effectives Monitoring Program) for the Columbia Basin. Data collection and processing were performed by Watershed Sciences. The flight covered 122 km2 and 26 river kilometers of Bridge Creek, a tributary to the John Day River in central Oregon. The flight was used as a baseline survey for the Bridge Creek Intensively Monitored Watershed, which is nested in the broader Status and Trend Monitoring in the John Day Pilot Basin. Channel incision within Bridge Creek IMW, OR, has degraded instream and floodplain habitat leading to a loss of spawning and rearing habitat, increased summer stream temperatures and reduced base flows impacting steelhead using this system. ISEMP is collaborating with the National Park Service, NOAA-Fisheries, and the Bureau of Land Management on a restoration project that will accelerate natural recovery rates of the processes that create and maintain steelhead habitat to substantially increase steelhead productivity within the drainage.