Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Scientific observations of fishes in tidal wetlands of the upper Sacramento San Joaquin Delta using imaging sonar devices, derived from 2018 field data

Metadata Updated: July 6, 2024

Major tidal wetland habitat restoration efforts are planned to benefit Delta Smelt and other imperiled species in the Sacramento-San-Joaquin Delta. However, successful implementation of habitat restoration is constrained by a paucity of information on the services and functions tidal wetlands provide for fishes. This knowledge gap is largely due to the difficulties of collecting ecological data in these challenging environments. For example, the dynamic nature of tidally influenced habitats requires high frequency sampling in order to accurately characterize environmental conditions and how fishes responses to them. We accomplished this by monitoring fish movements into and out of two tidal wetland habitats and examining the environmental drivers underlying our observations. The California Water Science Center hydrodynamic group collected water quality and flow information and this data was processed and stored in Aquarius.The California Water Science Center, Aquatic Ecology group collected observational footage of fishes at a commensurate frequency using imaging sonar devices. Imaging sonars are underwater devices that use sound waves to collect information regarding fish movement and behavior. Specific measurements provided by this technique include estimates of fish size, position, and speed of movement. This data was used to compare fish movements and behavior at the entrance points of two disparate tidal wetland habitats in the northern Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. We selected two adjacent, hydrodynamically-connected-but-geomorphically-distinct wetland study sites: Little Holland Tract and Liberty Island Conservation Bank (sometimes referred to as Wildlands). Little Holland Tract is a former agricultural tract that flooded due to levee failure in 1983. This site contains a large open water area with a broad expanse of intertidal mud flats and relatively small stands of tules along its periphery. In contrast, Liberty Island Conservation Bank is an engineered tidal wetland restoration project constructed in 2010 exhibiting shallow, dendritic tidal channels and tidal marsh plain. Our use of acoustic cameras in this study facilitated direct observations of fishes in these habitats commensurate with the rapid rate of environmental (tidal) change. Preliminary results revealed that fish densities are substantially higher than what had been inferred previously from traditional sampling approaches. Overall, we found that drivers of fish movement into and out of each habitat varied broadly as a function of the permanency of available wetted habitat area. Ultimately, this information will be used to optimize the design of tidal wetland restoration to achieve functional habitat for native fishes. This data release contains information about the fishes observed during this study.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/646c8207ba549248ae94faeaae09da7f
Identifier USGS:5df027d9e4b02caea0f4f4c5
Data Last Modified 20200831
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 398fe301-77b6-4f34-8fc7-2d54579bec4e
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -121.69796,38.30961,-121.66637,38.34273
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash e30109cdf45c544ef5777a1ae92dc93275a8df8f37bf640af605914ec533f6a6
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -121.69796, 38.30961, -121.69796, 38.34273, -121.66637, 38.34273, -121.66637, 38.30961, -121.69796, 38.30961}

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.