Aquatic habitat assessment common methods /
Abstract: Habitat is now the basis of most impact assessments and resource inventories, and it is the basis of many species management plans, mitigation planning, and environmental regulation. Habitats are relatively stable through time, easily defined in intuitive physical terms, and provide a tang...
| Other Authors: | Bain, Mark B., Stevenson, Nathalie J. |
|---|---|
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Bethesda, Md. :
American Fisheries Society,
[1999]
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| Physical Description: |
viii, 216 pages : illustrations, maps ; 28 cm. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: |
Abstract: Habitat is now the basis of most impact assessments and resource inventories, and it is the basis of many species management plans, mitigation planning, and environmental regulation. Habitats are relatively stable through time, easily defined in intuitive physical terms, and provide a tangible resource for negotiations and decision making. Numerous and varied methods of analyzing and reporting habitat conditions have been developed by federal, state, provincial, and private agencies. Habitat assessment approaches vary greatly among regions of the continent. The great variability in methods and an unusually wide range of practices have impeded the ability of agencies to share and synthesize information. A diversity of methods is desirable in the initial stages of a rapidly developing field, but enough time has passed to assess the state-of-knowledge and identify the best of the currently used methods and techniques. This manual is intended to provide fisheries biologists with a limited set of techniques for obtaining aquatic habitat data. The manual also describes the range of information collected and used in agency habitat analyses. Agencies planning habitat programs should review the synthesis of established and documented methods being used in North America (Appendix 1) and the planning recommendations in Chapter 2. Then, the remaining chapters should be reviewed to determine what types of habitat data should be included in the agency's program. |
|---|---|
| Item Description: |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-211) and index. 1.1. Purpose of this manual -- 1.2. Development of this manual -- 1.3. Selection of methods and techniques -- 2. Approaches to habitat analysis -- 2.1. Inventorying -- 2.2. Analyzing habitat quality -- 2.3. Monitoring effects of land use -- 2.4. Assessing habitat improvement activities -- 3. Regional setting -- 3.1. Introduction -- 3.2. Ecoregion identification -- 3.3. Watershed identification -- 3.4. Hydrologic units -- 3.5. Physiographic provinces -- 4. Drainage basins -- 4.1. Introduction -- 4.2. geomorphic properties -- 4.3. Stream order -- 4.4. Basin land cover -- 5. Water body identification -- 5.1 Introduction -- 5.2. Position identification -- 5.3. Water body coding -- 5.4. Descriptive attributes -- 6. Stream reach surveys and measurements -- 6.1. Introduction -- 6.2. Preparation --6.3. Procedures -- 6.4 Notes -- 7. Classification of streams and reaches -- 7.1. Introduction -- 7.2. Rosgen technique -- 7.3. Galay system -- 7.4. Bed form system -- 8. Macrohabitat identification -- 8.1. Introduction -- 8.2. Delineation: channel feature and dimension technique -- 8.3. Delineation: bed form differencing technique -- 8.4. Macrohabitat classification -- 9. Substrate -- 9.1. Introduction -- 9.2. Assessment of composition: frequency of size classes -- 9.3. Assessment of structure: embeddedness -- 9.4. Assessment of size-frequency distribution: pebble counts -- 10. Cover and refuge -- 10.1. Introduction -- 10.2. Cover composition and abundance -- 10.3. Structural complexity -- 10.4. Cover density -- 11. Streambank and shoreline condition -- 11.1. Introduction -- 11.2. Streambank and shoreline cover -- 11.3. Bank shape -- 11.4. Shoreline animal damage -- 12. Riparian vegetation -- 12.1. Introduction -- 12.2. General vegetation characterization -- 12.3. Water side vegetation assessment -- 13. Barriers -- 13.1. Introduction -- 13.2. Assessing natural and small artificial barriers -- 13.3. Assessing large artificial dams -- 13.4. Assessing stream habitat conditions as potential barriers -- 14. Streamflow -- 14.1. Introduction -- 14.2. Cross Section measurement 14.3 stream gauge data -- 15. Temperature -- 15.1. Introduction -- 15.2. Point-in-time measurements -- 15.3. Temperature monitoring -- 16. Lake morphology -- 16.1. Introduction -- 16.2. Lake dimensions --16.3. Lake geology -- 17. Water transparency -- 17.1. Introduction --17.2. Turbidity -- 17.3. Total suspended solids -- 18. Interpreting chemical data -- 18.1. Introduction -- 18.2. Sources of water quality data -- 18.3. Common water quality parameters -- 18.4. Summarizing water quality data -- Appendix: Trends in methods for assessing freshwater habitats. Abstract: Habitat is now the basis of most impact assessments and resource inventories, and it is the basis of many species management plans, mitigation planning, and environmental regulation. Habitats are relatively stable through time, easily defined in intuitive physical terms, and provide a tangible resource for negotiations and decision making. Numerous and varied methods of analyzing and reporting habitat conditions have been developed by federal, state, provincial, and private agencies. Habitat assessment approaches vary greatly among regions of the continent. The great variability in methods and an unusually wide range of practices have impeded the ability of agencies to share and synthesize information. A diversity of methods is desirable in the initial stages of a rapidly developing field, but enough time has passed to assess the state-of-knowledge and identify the best of the currently used methods and techniques. This manual is intended to provide fisheries biologists with a limited set of techniques for obtaining aquatic habitat data. The manual also describes the range of information collected and used in agency habitat analyses. Agencies planning habitat programs should review the synthesis of established and documented methods being used in North America (Appendix 1) and the planning recommendations in Chapter 2. Then, the remaining chapters should be reviewed to determine what types of habitat data should be included in the agency's program. |
| Physical Description: |
viii, 216 pages : illustrations, maps ; 28 cm. |
| Bibliography: |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-211) and index. |
| ISBN: |
1888569182 9781888569186 |