California Estuarine Wetland Monitoring Manual (Level 3)

This manual updates a previous framework to guide the development of coastal, perennial estuarine wetland monitoring programs throughout California by providing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and recommended protocols. As a living document that continues to be developed, this version has new and modified protocols, and it is anticipated that further changes to these will be made over time. It is important to have standardized, scientifically valid, and repeatable protocols and metrics to evaluate the health of a system. Protocols should be able to be replicated temporally and spatially, with a thorough evaluation of their applicability to different habitat types within wetland systems. The manual provides a framework to guide the development of site-intensive wetland monitoring and demonstrates how programs may begin to structure their protocol and method choices to reflect a more standardized approach.