I’m assembling a rapid-assessment workflow for drought season to prioritize water savings that keep nursery riffles wet and cold, and I’d love your free/low-cost tool recommendations. Right now I’m leaning on USGS EflowStats in R, HOBO temp loggers at 10‑min intervals, and quick seepage runs with FlowTracker2 on the lower Clackamas in August — what else are you using that’s field-ready and defensible with stakeholders?
On the lower Clackamas last August we mapped losing reaches fast with salt‑slug dilution runs. “field-ready and defensible” — two EC loggers and a weighed NaCl slug, then fit the breakthrough curve for Q; it beat stacking FlowTracker points for a synoptic and the plots sell it with stakeholders. Caveat: calibrate EC vs concentration in stream water first and avoid long pools to keep the tail tight.
I’ve had good luck doing an August afternoon sweep of riffles with a $25 IR thermometer and geotagging hits in Avenza Maps (https://www.avenzamaps.com) — it’s a fast way to pick out cold upwelling lanes you might miss with “10‑min” HOBOs. Small caveat: IR on water is fussy, so I always confirm any cool spot with a quick submerged probe before prioritizing it for FlowTracker2 seepage checks.
And quick win for me: drop a couple EnviroDIY Mayfly EC+temp loggers for 24–48 h at riffle heads/tails; paired with your 10‑min HOBOs, the EC variance flags cold, seep‑fed patches to prioritize. https://envirodiy.org — cheap and solid, but budget an hour for calibration/potting or the EC will drift. Often faster (and cheaper) triage than another FlowTracker2 seepage run when time is tight in August.