Background
The OWEB Board’s Monitoring Subcommittee and staff have identified tide gate restoration investments as a priority area to investigate via programmatic effectiveness monitoring. Tide gate restoration includes projects that remove tide gates completely or replace them with fish-friendly designs. Such projects can be costly and complex to design and implement. Natural resource experts have raised concerns about the aging tide gate infrastructure in Oregon with an increasing number of failing tide gates and thus a growing need for restoration projects involving tide gates.
Photo Credit: Lower Nehalem Watershed Council
Project Summary
In July 2016, the Board provided funding to the Institute for Natural Resources (INR) at Oregon State University (OSU) to investigate the collective lessons learned from tide gate restoration projects by performing a literature review and compilation effort. The team, including OSU faculty and INR staff, examined the outcomes of tide gate restoration actions in 3 ways:
- A literature review of existing materials from the Pacific Northwest that describe the effects of tide gate restoration projects;
- A summary, compiled findings, and lessons learned from the tide gate restoration and effectiveness monitoring of OWEB-funded projects; and
- A summary, compiled findings, and lessons learned from the tide gate restoration and effectiveness monitoring of non-OWEB-funded projects.
Literature Review and Knowledge Synthesis
The report,
Ecological Effects of Tide Gate Upgrade or Removal: A Literature Review and Knowledge Synthesis, compiles these findings and highlights important information and issues to be considered during OWEB’s grant-making processes. The document also provides recommendations for planning, designing, and monitoring tide gate restoration projects in the future. The
executive summary is provided separately for your convenience.
For summaries of the literature, and OWEB- and non-OWEB-funded projects reviewed, readers can refer to
Appendices A-C, which are compiled in a separate document.
Considerations for Restoration Practitioners
The
Ecological Effects of Tide Gate Upgrade or Removal: Considerations for Restoration Practitioners is a 29-page bulletin that summarizes the findings from the 2018 tide gate literature review report. The bulletin also incorporates feedback and lessons learned from tide gate practitioners since the report was completed. This bulletin is intended for a technical audience, and the findings may be of particular interest to those designing and implementing tide gate restoration projects.
Tide Gate and Tidal Westland Monitoring Handbook
In 2024, with a grant from OWEB, the Coquille Watershed Association (CoqWA), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), and Tillamook Estuaries Partnership (TEP) developed the Tide Gate and Tidal Wetland Monitoring Guidance and Protocols for Estuary Practitioners handbook with input from the Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, and Laura Brophy at the Institute for Applied Ecology. This project was inspired by Souder et al. (2018), who recognized the need for a standardized set of tide gate monitoring protocols. The tide gate community was surveyed and interviewed to determine what new resource could be created to guide practitioners through implementing a state-water standardized monitoring framework. This document reflects that input.
Contact
Please direct questions or comments to
Ken Fetcho, Effectiveness Monitoring Coordinator, 971-345-7018.