This is a report of the Environmental Effects Monitoring Program (EEMP) for sixteen hydroacoustic fish surveys conducted in Minas Passage between August 2011 through August 2017. Six historical surveys were led by Dr. Gary Melvin between August 2011 and May 2012 and nine FORCE-funded contemporary surveys were conducted between May 2016 and August 2017.

The four main objectives of this report are to:

1. Provide FORCE personnel information relevant to understanding the historical and contemporary datasets, including technical guidance.

2. Convey to FORCE a set of scripts that can be used to automate preparation of hydroacoustic data for analyses.

3. Provide examples of data visualizations, including a case study example of drilling down into the data to gain insight into the summarized data.

4. Provide a statistically rigorous analytical approach to quantifying the relationship between observed volume backscattering strength (Sv: proxy for fish density) and predictor variables (e.g., site, season, tide phase). This approach was designed and approved by a University of Maine statistician.

An overall approach to understand the information contained within the hydroacoustic datasets, including data visualization and statistical analyses are detailed in the report. In addition, the scripts with coding for the analytical approach and data visualizations are provided such that deeper explorations of the data may be taken to investigate questions specific to the needs of FORCE.