Climate Change & Salmonids Project

Photo credit: Dolf Vermeulen

Understanding how climate change impacts salmon habitat through data collection by temperature loggers:

The Sunshine Coast Streamkeepers Society initiated the “Climate Change and Salmonid: Recording Creek Water/Air Temperatures” in 2020. The purpose of this project is to continually monitor the temperatures of the salmon bearing creeks on the Sunshine Coast. As we experience more and more unprecedented weather events, mainly the longer, dryer and hotter summers leading to record drought conditions, we will have the historical data to compare the creek’s water temperatures at one-hour intervals from one year to the next. We believe the greatest threat to wild salmon and their habitat is climate change. We must be equipped with knowledge of what is happening in the field to find ways to mitigate the effects of these warmer conditions on the mortality of salmon.

This has been such a success, we decided we want to expand this project by including more creeks. We have a better picture of how climate change is affecting the natural habitat of wild salmon.

Chapman
water temperature and salmonid production 2021

These loggers will be recording both air and water temperatures every hour of every day of the year!! We look forward to sharing the valuable information and using this data to help us make better decisions on how to help salmon survive . Please watch for the data we will be collecting at 3 month intervals!!

We are excited to have the data we have collected for the past 3 years on the DataStream website!

SCSS data found HERE!

Have a look at country wide data on DataStream website.

To look at just the Pacific Hub HERE!

Further Reading: Please see informative brochures we share at public events.

Riparian Brochure

Healthy Streams

Healthy Home Tips

My Healthy Stream Brochure

Stream Care Brochure