Interagency Ecological Program: Water quality, fish, and zooplankton monitoring and modeling to support the 2018 Suisun Marsh Salinity Control Gates Summer Action

In summer 2018 we used a unique water control structure in the San Francisco Estuary (SFE) to direct a managed flow pulse into Suisun Marsh, one of the largest contiguous tidal marshes on the west coast of the United States. The action was designed to increase habitat suitability for the endangered Delta Smelt Hypomesus transpacificus, a small osmerid fish endemic to the upper SFE. The approach was to operate the Suisun Marsh Salinity Control Gates (SMSCG) in conjunction with increased Sacramento River tributary inflow to direct an estimated 160 x 10^6 m3 pulse of low salinity water into Suisun Marsh during August, a critical time period for juvenile Delta Smelt rearing. This dataset includes physical and biological monitoring data collected for the action. Datasets include Delta Smelt catch from the USFWS Enhanced Delta Smelt Monitoring program, zooplankton and Microcystis abundance from the Environmental Monitoring Program, historic Delta Smelt catch from the Summer Townet Survey, Delta Outflow from the Dayflow model, extent of Delta Smelt habitat from the UnTRIM Bay-Delta model, and water quality (Salinity, Temperature, Chlorophyll, and Turibidity) collected at continuous sondes at three locations. These data are associated with the manuscript "Evaluation of a large-scale flow manipulation to the upper San Francisco Estuary: Response of habitat conditions for an endangered native fish," by Dr. Ted Sommer, et al. 2020 PLOS One, in review.