Our watershed is a fascinating place full of wildlife, beauty, and water quality challenges. The Johnson Creek Watershed Council aims to make it easier for you, the community, to participate in and learn about science in your watershed. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to create an online science clearinghouse, and sections of that clearinghouse have recently gone live!
There are several new web pages for you to explore. The Science Library contains 110 scientific studies and reports on Johnson Creek, dating as long ago as 1975 and as recently as 2017. You can search by topic, year, agency, or title, or just browse the documents to learn about Johnson Creek. (More documents are still trickling in; if you know of any missing ones, let us know!)
Students, community members, and fellow scientists often call us with questions about Johnson Creek’s water quality, and we are working to make water quality data more accessible as well. Our new Water Quality page is still being developed; it summarizes the in-depth Water Quality 2009-2014 report, with maps showing findings on temperature, mercury and other toxins, macroinvertebrates, and more.
Finally, we’ve created pages on Dragonfly Science, Beaver Science, and Salmon Science for you to learn about the data collected by dozens of intrepid volunteers over the past several years. Community Science volunteers have walked Johnson Creek’s streambanks and wetlands to gather data on all of these species, helping us to better understand our creek and how to restore it. These science pages feature data collected by surveyors, charts and maps of where data was collected (including beautiful maps of beaver dams!), background info about each species, and helpful links to more resources. Check them out! (You can navigate to them on our website’s menu by clicking Johnson Creek, then scrolling over Johnson Creek Science.)
More science is to come, both on the website and in the field. Stay tuned for pages on lamprey and for this summer’s dragonfly and beaver survey data, which will continue to expand our knowledge.
Thank you to all the hardworking volunteers and interns who are making it possible to learn about our living watershed! And to our partners for funding and supporting these projects: East Multnomah SWCD, Jubitz Family Foundation, Portland Bureau of Environmental Services, and Spirit Mountain Community Fund.
Special thanks to PSU’s Indigenous Nations Studies Program and Wisdom of the Elders for making the lamprey surveys a great success!