A wild brown trout holding in clear, dark stream water

Driftwise Solutions · Fisheries & Aquatic

Every fish, on the record.

Catch photos, PIT tags, and sampling CSVs become a reviewed population record — every identity match confirmed by a person, movement analytics, and figures that trace back to the capture behind them.

Request a demoAlso running: Habitat & Invasives · Waterway

Photo — Jon Sailer / Unsplash

Fisheries & Aquatic

Run a mark-recapture program without the binder.

Driftwise keeps catch photos, sampling CSVs, and recapture matches organized by watershed and reach. The population record stays traceable because every match is logged and reviewed.

01
Capture
Catch & event capture
Anglers and biologists submit photos, lengths, and locations from the field. Electrofishing and seining events upload as CSV batches.
- Photo, GPS, species, and length in one submission
- Bulk CSV ingest for sampling events
- Sampling operations schedule across crews, each member with a my-schedule view
- Works offline; syncs when signal returns
02
Identity
Individual identity matching
PIT tag and mark-recapture matching links each capture to a known individual. A reviewer confirms the match before it enters the population record, so nothing gets counted twice.
- PIT tag matching
- Human QA review queue
- Provenance recorded on every match
- Cross-organization catch sharing links tagged fish across programs — opt-in, with anonymized attribution
03
Analytics
Population intelligence
Recapture intervals, growth curves, and reach-level abundance estimates come out as the figures that go straight into agency and grant reports.
- Growth and survival curves
- Reach-level abundance dashboards
- Export-ready report figures and grant summary tables
04
Spatial
Every capture on the river
The record is spatial the whole way down. Each capture snaps to a river reach and carries the conditions at that moment, so opening a point on the corridor map gives you the whole encounter — tag, length, flow, and water temperature attached.
- Captures snap to NHD reaches, with river ID and watershed on the record
- Stream flow and water temperature joined at capture time
- Recapture paths trace each fish up and down the corridor
- Movement networks export as GeoJSON for partners and habitat modelers
1,847 captures412 individuals96 recaptures

Specimen · PIT 3DD.003BE9A41F· Representative recordBrown trout Salmo trutta

12025-04-12Reach 4 · Sawmill Run · RM 12.4

PIT 3DD.003BE9A41F214 mm

PIT identical · 187 dReviewed · A. Reyes

22025-10-16Reach 6 · Cedar Bend · RM 14.8

PIT 3DD.003BE9A41F268 mm

32026-04-03Reach 6 · Cedar Bend · RM 15.1

PIT 3DD.003BE9A41F291 mm

42026-06-21Reach 7 · Upper Meadow · RM 16.6

PIT 3DD.003BE9A41F312 mm

DistributionMovement distancen=96 pairs · metres

380–50

2450–250

13250–500

9500–1k

61–2k

32–5k

25–10k

1>10k

Median180 m

Mean640 m

P953.8 km

Movement classDirection

Upstream: 3840%
Downstream: 4446%
Same reach: 1415%

Select a capture on the mapLamoille River corridor · representative captures

Growth+98mm214 → 312 mmObserved

At large435dApr 2025 – Jun 2026Data window

Moved+4.2RMupstream · 3 reachesNet, upstream

Encounters41 individual · 3 recapturesStudy-wide

Intelligence · Risk engines

Three engines, one clear state for every reach.

A conclusion is only worth acting on if you can take it apart. Driftwise watches every reach against live and modeled federal data — then tells you which edge was crossed, what the reading was, and where it came from.

See a corridor report

The engines

One feed. Three questions of the same water.

The engines are siblings, not a stack — none reads another's conclusion. Pick one to see the inputs it watches.

Select an engine to see what it reads

What it reads

Every input, read and sourced.

The same water, read against what fish respond to — thermal limits per species, connectivity, and the habitat and land pressure around the reach. It reads your own field records too.

Thermal & climate1

Modeled stream temperatureMODELED19d ago

20.8°C

healthycrit 24

Adds to Severity → signal 48

Modeled summer temperature where no live gauge sits on the reach — field-verify before any closure.

Flow & hydrology1

Flow-extreme persistence (14-day)MODELED6h ago

0.98fraction

Returned data · no risk signal for this reach

Share of the last 14 days flow has sat outside the normal band — how entrenched the extreme is.

Habitat & connectivity4

Barrier passabilityMODELED8d ago

Adds to Sensitivity → signal 100

Passage-barrier fragmentation — the worst connected barrier on the reach's network cuts off upstream access.

Species imperilmentMODELED9h ago

Adds to Sensitivity → signal 25

Vulnerable species recorded in this HUC8 basin (basin-level context).

Dendritic connectivity indexMANUAL8d ago

0.59

Returned data · no risk signal for this reach

How connected the reach's river network is, end to end.

Fish mortality survey stateMANUAL2h ago

Returned data · no risk signal for this reach

No survey-effort record — a mortality absence here is a data gap, not confirmed safety.

Watershed & land5

Riparian buffer forest coverMODELED9h ago

32.4%

healthywarn 50

Adds to Sensitivity → signal 21

Shade deficit against reference canopy in the streamside buffer — lost shade is a manageable driver of warming.

Watershed impervious coverMODELED9h ago

0.80%

healthy

Adds to Exposure → signal 2

Share of the upstream watershed under pavement — higher means flashier, dirtier runoff.

Watershed croplandMODELED9h ago

0.07%

healthycrit 50

Adds to Exposure → signal 0

Share of the upstream watershed in row crops — higher means more nutrient and sediment runoff.

Watershed dam densityMODELED9h ago

0dams/km²

Returned data · no risk signal for this reach

Dams per km² across the upstream watershed — higher means more flow alteration.

Watershed mine densityMODELED9h ago

0mines/km²

Returned data · no risk signal for this reach

Mines per km² across the upstream watershed — higher means more contamination pressure.

Field & regulatory1

Impairment causesLIVE9h ago

—

Returned data · no risk signal for this reach

EPA-listed impairment causes for the reach's subwatershed.

The state

Readings become one state, and a next step.

Each input is watched against its own healthy range. When a reading leaves that range it trips an edge, and the reach takes the state of the worst edge that tripped — never an average, so a lethal reading can never be diluted by a dozen benign ones. Every reach lands here, and arrives with the readings that put it there:

An edge was crossed

CriticalA critical edge is crossed. Close to fishing / rescue & relocate — approval required.
WarningA warning edge is crossed. Restrict take or issue advisory; schedule a survey.
WatchAn informational edge is crossed. Monitor closely; re-check before the season or event.

No edge was crossed — for three different reasons

All clearNothing we could assess crossed an edge. Not a clean bill of health — routine monitoring.
Partial dataWe looked, and could not see enough to conclude. Survey, or connect the missing source.
Not evaluatedNo run has looked at this reach yet — not an all-clear. Run the engine.

And two things you can always see

Stale is not failed

A reading past its freshness window still resolves — it is marked and weighed down through confidence, so age lowers certainty instead of vanishing.

Measured and modeled are labelled

Every card carries its provenance. You can see whether a number was read off a gauge or produced by a model.

Also free

The federal data, free to look at.

Flow, flood forecasts, drought and wildfire are four of the inputs the Fisheries Risk engine watches on every reach. Each is published as a free public map — no login, no paywall.

Any point · Six datasets · United States

Watershed Explorer

Click any point in the country and read what six federal datasets say about it — flow, drought, fire, flood forecast, satellite cyanobacteria screening and Clean Water Act impairment — each one labelled with what it is actually a fact about.

Wildfire · Smoke · United States

Wildfire & Smoke Map

Official NIFC fire perimeters and incident points under NOAA’s HRRR-Smoke near-surface forecast, filterable by size, state, and containment.

Streamflow · Rivers · United States

Streamflow Map

Every reporting USGS stream gauge in the country, coloured by how today’s flow ranks against that gauge’s own record for this calendar day.

Drought · United States

U.S. Drought Map

The U.S. Drought Monitor — the country’s official weekly drought assessment — drawn across five severity categories from D0 to D4.

Flood · Rivers · United States

Flood Outlook Map

NOAA’s river forecast centres call the next few days at every forecast gauge in the country, on the National Weather Service’s own flood categories — action, minor, moderate and major.

Water quality · 303(d) · United States

Impaired Waters Map

Every subwatershed in the country against the states’ own Clean Water Act assessments — what is impaired, what is still on the 303(d) list, what is causing it, and how much of the country nobody has assessed at all.

Cyanobacteria · Lakes · United States

Cyanobacteria Bloom Map

NASA and EPA’s satellites read a pigment index over roughly 2,300 U.S. lakes large enough to resolve at 300 m. A pre-screening indicator, not a health assessment, and never a substitute for your state’s advisory.

ESA · Protected land · United States

Critical Habitat & Protected Waters Map

Every river and stream the federal government has designated as ESA critical habitat, the listed species each unit is designated for, and who manages the protected land around it.

Every Driftwise public map →

SEE IT IN ACTION

One platform for three monitoring programs.

Run a mark-recapture program, coordinate a multi-partner invasive species response, or manage the waterway program for a state park or conservation nonprofit. Bring your own program to the demo and we'll run Driftwise on it, live.

Request a demo

A free 30-minute working session with your data on screen.

Get started

Scope a pilot for your program.

Tell us about your program — a watershed, an infestation, a trail system. We'll walk through how a field record becomes the report your agency and funders sign off on.

The call

A working call, not a pitch

We spend the time on your actual program — the data you have now and the report you owe.

Onboarding

Guided onboarding

We import your existing records and configure the setup alongside your team. Role-based in-product tours carry the rest of the crew after the call.

Scope

Start with one season

Run a single pilot first and expand when it earns the next watershed.

Reach us

Send us your corridor, watershed, or program and we'll build the working demo around your records. We reply within one business day.

Click to reveal — we obscure the address to cut spam.

Every fish, on the record.

Run a mark-recapture program without the binder.

Catch & event capture

Individual identity matching

Population intelligence

Every capture on the river

Three engines, one clear state for every reach.

One feed. Three questions of the same water.

Every input, read and sourced.

Readings become one state, and a next step.

Stale is not failed

Measured and modeled are labelled

The federal data, free to look at.

One platform for three monitoring programs.

Scope a pilot for your program.