Many thanks to all the partners, participants, and supporters of the Community Flow Monitoring Network in 2024!
We finished off our 3rd year of the project strong by welcoming two new stations to the program in fall of 2024. We now support 9 active community hydrometric stations. Over 415 volunteer hours were dedicated to the Network in 2024.
It has been a cold and frosty start to 2025. Throughout the end of January and February, BCCF and Flow Network volunteers have been out getting the first discharge measurements of the year and downloading loggers so that we can work on finalizing the stage dataset for 2024. High flows have not been a major concern yet so far this year, but snow melt, and upcoming rain events could bring water levels up in the coming days and weeks. Always be prepared for weather conditions before you head out to the field, and assess stream conditions on-site before deciding whether it is safe to wade in.
A new and exciting update is that we recently received a new FlowTracker2 for use within the program! This addition means that we now have a Flowtracker1 and Flowtracker2 available for loan to participating groups.
As discussed in our 2024 Fall Network meeting, we encourage groups that feel comfortable operating the equipment on their own to begin conducting independent site visits and discharge measurements. Several groups have already begun planning their monitoring schedules for 2025, incorporating independent measurements. Depending on the size of your stream, Spring may be the best time to conduct a measurement independently if you have not done so before. Don’t forget, our SOP contains a step-by-step guide to using both Flowtracker models, so we recommend you review these sections before heading out.
We updated our SOP in 2025
HydRA App
As briefly discussed in our 2024 Fall Network Meeting, the Province of BC has recently launched a new tool for developing rating curves.
https://hydra.nrs.gov.bc.ca/rctool
Upcoming
Stay tuned for an announcement about our 2025 Spring Network Meeting which we aim to host in April.
It is almost that time of year again for our Knowledge Tracking Survey. Each spring, we send out an anonymous survey to each participating member. These surveys are meant to capture your self-assessment of issue awareness, primarily about fish habitat impacts and streamflow regulation. The information collected is used to help the program to better understand how we can provide education and resource materials.
As always, don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or comments about our resources or anything else related to the Network.
Happy Monitoring!
