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General Monitoring Protocol <br />Data Collection <br />Transects across the middle channel of the Platte River will be surveyed at low flow following <br />the Cottonwood Ranch research protocol outlined below. Low flows are needed to provide <br />easier working conditions and for safety. Stream discharge of the Platte River at Overton, NE, <br />gage will be used to identify appropriate working conditions and these flows will be recorded in <br />the SOP. General Monitoring transects to be surveyed include eight research cross sections <br />spaced one mile apart. Three of these transects are on the Cottonwood Ranch property and five <br />are located downstream of Cottonwood Ranch and upstream of the Kearney Canal Diversion. <br />Five of these eight monitoring transects are to be located at the anchor points of the probability <br />based sample taken for the General Monitoring. The Universal Transversal Mercator (LJTM) <br />locations of these 5 points are the intersection of the main channel of the Platte and eastings <br />461003.49, 462593.20, 464146.15, 468659.43, and 470167.71. General Monitoring cross <br />sections are shown in Figure 1. The channel variables for these eight General Monitoring cross <br />sections will be collected through the research project. The Platte River General Monitoring <br />Program will maintain data collection at some or all of these cross sections after the completion <br />of this research project. <br />The data collection in year 2000 will serve as the pilot year for purposes of refining the Platte <br />River General Monitoring Protocol. Data collected at these initial General Monitoring cross <br />sections will: 1) Provide first year data for long term monitoring, 2) refine estimates of costs for <br />collecting data at these widely spaced monitoring cross sections, and 3) identify statistical <br />characteristics of variables including variance and dependence estimates and the sensitivity of <br />trend detection. Data collected at each transect will include topographic survey, bed sediment <br />sampling, and ground photography. <br />Data Analysis <br />Data will be summarized at the transect level and statistics such as the mean and standard <br />deviation will be compiled using transects as the sample size. These data will be included in an <br />annual data report. Post-stratification of the transects into managed, unmanaged, and <br />downstream strata will enable pilot analyses of the data for each strata, although the sample sizes <br />are insufficient for making changes across a broad spatial scale. Trend detection will involve <br />computing the least squares regression line through all the data points in a regression of any <br />summary measure against year. Statistically significant increases or decreases in trend will be <br />defined as a nonzero regression line. <br />Research Protocol <br />Data Collection <br />Transect types are outlined in Table 1 and locations of these transects are shown in Figure 1. <br />There are two types of transects identified: 1) Temporal intensive cross sections that are <br />surveyed four to six times a year (including before and after high flow season and a survey in the <br />Fall) along with ancillary data (i.e. bed and bank material sampling and ground photography), <br />4