Are you interested in how we measure the health of the Nashwaak Watershed? We’re starting a new social media series to give you more information about our field work and the data we collect! Check out our Facebook and Instagram to follow along every Wednesday. This week, we’re starting off with our temperature logger program. This is the third year that we’ve deployed HOBO temperature loggers throughout the watershed. This year we have 37 loggers installed in the Nashwaak and its tributaries that measure the water temperature every 4 hours. If you see one, please leave it be! Find out more information here.
From this information we hope to 1) determine the location of cold water refuges that are important to fish in the hot summer months so that we can restore or protect them and 2) monitor how warm the main stem and the larger tributaries get in the summer and compare those results year to year. The graph below shows the average summer temperature for 2018. The Nashwaak averaged almost 20C last summer while the tributaries were much cooler (16.5C). 
