The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) hosted a training program to assist VSP counties using WDFW’s High Resolution Change Detection (HRCD) data to monitor critical areas on agricultural land. Thanks to the Center for Technical Development (CTD) for supporting this training.

View recordings and slides here.

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Please join us for an online VSP Monitoring Plan Workshop event on May 20, 9 - 11:30 a.m.

This event will continue our collective discussions to:

• Clarify the monitoring plan expectations and review process.
• Support counties with the development of their VSP monitoring plans.
• Provide space for counties to share monitoring tools and resources with each other, establishing a community of practice around monitoring, and fostering connections in the VSP community.

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The Washington State Conservation Commission is hosting an in-person hybrid meeting to support counties with the development of their VSP monitoring plans. There is great work happening statewide and we want to bring the VSP community together to share monitoring resources and lessons learned and have a collaborative discussion on VSP monitoring. We encourage everyone to attend in person, but have a virtual option available.

To support a collaborative discussion, please come prepared to discuss the monitoring tools your county is considering using and copies of resources or examples to share with participants. This meeting is an opportunity for counties to collaborate with each other, with support from state partners, to develop a robust set of tools for monitoring critical areas statewide.

Agenda

Meeting notes, slides, and resources‍

Recording

Meeting Goals:

• Clarify the monitoring plan expectations and review process.

• Support counties with the development of their VSP monitoring plans.

• Provide space for counties to share monitoring tools and resources with each other, establish a community of practice around monitoring, and foster connections in the VSP community.

This event took place in person in Ellensburg and also online.

This webinar explored tools and approaches to identify and prioritize erosion hot spots on agricultural lands. Ryan Boylan, Research and Monitoring Coordinator at Palouse Conservation District, shared his work on this important topic. The second portion of this session provided updates on various projects, programs, and data sets that relate to VSP monitoring.

This webinar on Nov. 14 was focused on assessing wetland functions and values, with an emphasis on applications to watershed-scale monitoring and VSP.

The webinar introduced and summarized lessons learned and best practices from multiple watershed scale monitoring efforts conducted by CEAP across the US; and approaches and frameworks used by the ACPF to assist conservation districts, NRCS staff, and other partners with planning, prioritization, monitoring, and outreach at the nexus of agriculture and ecosystems.

The March 9 Monitoring Symposium contained wonderful presentations from WSDA about monitoring data and methods for surface water, crops, soil health, groundwater, and dairy nutrient management.

VSP Monitoring Symposium - Fall 2022 (Nov 2022)

USDA NRCS Plant Materials Program: A history and future of developing, testing, and transferring plant science technologies to meet natural resource needs.