Overview
The Oregon Watershed Restoration Inventory (OWRI) is managed by OWEB and originated with the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds. The majority of OWRI entries represent voluntary actions of private citizens and landowners who have worked in partnership with federal, state, and local groups to improve aquatic habitat and water quality conditions. OWRI is the single largest restoration information database in the Western United States with submissions on over 19,000 projects completed since 1995.
OWRI information is used to:
- Track Oregonians' voluntary efforts to restore habitats for salmon and wildlife.
- Track completed restoration projects, including those funded with OWEB grants.
- Report Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watershed accomplishments.
- Support effectiveness monitoring of restoration activities.
- Inform watershed assessments and future restoration project planning and prioritization.
Report a Project to OWRI
The OWRI annual data call for projects completed in 2023 or earlier is open through March 31, 2024.
OWRI Online Reporting Tool
OWRI Reporting is 100% online since March 2011. Features include:
- Enter data at one sitting or over many sessions
- Share project reporting with another user
- Maintain current OWRI data collection standards
- "Verify Project" feature ensures that required data are entered
- "Clone Project" feature allows data to be copied and then modified for use in another project
- "Upload Map" feature provides easy upload and viewing capabilities (no need to email a map)
- View data at any time, including current and past projects and reports from other users (upon request)
- View the project submission status
Each project submitted to the OWRI is reviewed by OWEB staff. Submissions by OWEB grantees are anticipated to be reviewed on a weekly basis. You will be contacted if OWEB staff requires clarification about your submission.
The OWRI encourages reporting of all watershed restoration projects, not just those funded by OWEB. To be included in the inventory, projects must be:
- Activities designed to restore aquatic, riparian, estuarine, wetland, upland, or overall watershed conditions or functions.
- Completed projects or a completed phase of a project.
- Activities above and beyond normal maintenance and management procedures in cases such as road and culvert improvements, erosion control, etc.
See the Oregon Aquatic Habitat Restoration and Enhancement Guide in the Resources section of this page for descriptions of restoration treatments.
The OWRI uses a broad definition of “project” to ensure that all restoration efforts are included in the inventory. A restoration project is characterized by a spatially discreet planning area (i.e., a single stream reach, several reaches along a stream and adjacent riparian zones, an entire subbasin, etc.) whose planning effort is generally distinct from other planning efforts. Several projects may also be nested within a larger planning effort. A project must have intended instream habitat, fish passage, or water quality benefits, and must be an effort above and beyond maintenance or management procedures in cases such as road and culvert improvements, or erosion control.
If the project includes more than one landowner and the project could be reported as separate, spatially discreet locations and treatments, please report each landowner’s project as a separate project. If the project includes more than one landowner and the same treatment was applied along adjacent stream reaches, one OWRI submission can include multiple landowners.
If the project covers a large geographic area and occurs in multiple subbasins, work in each subbasin must be reported as a separate project (e.g. summarize treatments such as upland weed control in a geographic area no larger than an 8-digit HUC).
Certain grant agreements or state or federal permits require the reporting of projects to OWRI. Examples include:
- OWEB-funded Restoration and Water Acquisition projects
- ODFW-funded Restoration & Enhancement projects
- Projects completed under DSL Wetland permits
- Projects completed under DSL Large Wood and Boulder Placement permits
Consult your grant agreement for your specific reporting requirements.
Report projects implemented in a given year to OWRI by March 31 of the following year. If the project used OWEB grant funds, consult the grant agreement for the reporting deadline. Submissions are accepted throughout the year.
Retrieve OWRI Data
Oregon Explorer Tables & GIS Data. OWEB makes MS Access and MS Excel versions of the OWRI database available on Oregon Explorer through a partnership with the Institute for Natural Resources and Oregon State University Libraries. Shapefiles and a geodatabase are also available for download.
Oregon Watershed Restoration Mapping Tool. This tool on Oregon Explorer was created to show the locations and information about OWRI projects.
Previous Biennial Reports of the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds
Reports to Congress for the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund
NOAA's PCSRF database
Conservation Registry
DISCLAIMER: The information contained in these reports and online resources may be synthesized in a way to reflect only a portion of the OWRI data. These resources may also reflect previous versions of the OWRI database and may not include newer data.
Contact
For questions or to confirm that you have the most current version of the OWRI database, contact
Bobbi Riggers, OWRI Data Coordinator, at 971-345-7003.