The Challenge:

Traditional conservation investments are not using all the tools available to develop priorities, target investment, and demonstrate progress. This limits their ability to efficiently and effectively fix water quality problems in rivers and streams. If we don’t track what we’re doing, how will we know if it is working?

The Solution: 

Fig. 1 KTAP brings together the numerous existing ledgers and mechanisms of tracking restoration and conservation projects.

The Klamath Tracking and Accounting Program (KTAP) is designed to collect information on all conservation and restoration projects in the Klamath Basin (Fig 1). By pulling together information from across funders and across the basin, KTAP allows project implementers, funders, water quality agencies, researchers, and other stakeholders to ask new questions about the work that being done and the outcomes it is producing. It enables adaptive management to occur on the project-, watershed-, and basin-wide scales.

Results: 

In 2016 the KTAP watershed report was published highlighting 63 practices from 16 different implementers and 7 funding sources. This resource can be utilized by:

• Restoration project developers to track and communicate the benefits of their work to funders, their boards, and the public; to identify partnerships; and, to inform project selection and design to provide the greatest benefit to water quality.
• Funders to track project- and program-scale outcomes and to improve prioritization of projects on a basin and subbasin-scale.
• Water quality agencies, including Oregon DEQ and the CA North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, can track implementation of the coordinated Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) assessments for the Oregon and California portions of the river.
• Stakeholders who care deeply about water quality and fish habitat in the Klamath can see the breadth and depth of individual actions being taken to address conservation. Basin-wide reports of accomplishment can rally the community around making progress toward common goals.

Moving Forward:

In 2017 and beyond, Willamette Partnership will continue the work of reaching out to local restoration groups and funders to build strong participation in KTAP. A new watershed report will come out every year to inform basin- and subbasin-scale adaptive management, prioritize projects, and communicate progress toward water quality and habitat goals.

KTAP Case Study

This document describes the background of KTAP and the considerations that went into designing the program protocol, watershed report, and strategy.

Building a Tracking and Accounting Program

A how-to guide for groups seeking to track and account for the conservation and restoration investments within their watershed, or other areas of interest. These lessons come largely from the development and implementation of the KTAP.

KTAP Project Stewardship Protocol Handbook

The Protocol Handbook describes the program purpose, origin, and the thoughtfulness embedded in its design. It also provides a step-by-step guide to submitting project-level information to the KTAP database.

KTAP Project Stewardship Reporting Form

An online form through which participants can submit information to the KTAP coordinator. The form has just a couple required fields, leaving the rest optional so that implementers can participate even if project information is limited. This also gives users the flexibility to filter sensitive information (e.g., specific project location). The program coordinator accepts data in other forms, transferring to the KTAP project spreadsheet manually. This has been key where funders can provide a dataset covering project activities from some or all of their grantees.

KTAP Watershed Report

KTAP uses an interactive website to summarize and communicate all the actions tracked by the program and to summarize the extent and impact of those actions. The website is a communication tool and is not intended to cover all of the available project information. Those who want to see the full dataset can download a copy of the master spreadsheet. To develop the website, the program coordinator reviews, manipulates, and queries the data to determine the pieces that will best tell the story. The draft report gets reviewed by the stakeholder working group before going live online.

The Klamath Tracking and Accounting Program Watershed Report is an interactive website that presents the actions tracked by the program and summarizes the extent and impact of those actions (see “Program Docs” tab for more information).

Klamath Basin Monitoring Program maintains a robust set of resources on water quality, fish habitat, and fish health monitoring in the Klamath Basin as well as restoration and research related events.