Session Lean: Renee Thompson, USGS
Session Co-lead: Nancy Roth, Tetra Tech, Neely Law, CWP
Session Format: Oral presentations
Abstract:
The Maintain Healthy Watersheds Goal Implementation Team (GIT) and Stream Health Workgroup of the Vital Habitat GIT at the Chesapeake Bay Program are collaborating to better understand direct measures of stream health and function and how The Chesapeake Watershed Assessment may inform stream function, health, stressors, and vulnerability. These two teams have a shared goal to increase the stream health and functions of healthy waters and watersheds. The Stream Health workgroup is working to improve and implement the Bay-wide Index of Biotic Integrity metric (Chessie-BIBI) to better track and report incremental improvements at a finer scale. We will demonstrate how these efforts can complement each other towards meeting shared goals. In this session, we propose to explore the current state of the science in maintaining and improving stream and watershed health across the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. We plan to discuss emerging approaches for assessment and tracking of conditions, including consideration of key stressors such as climate change and land use. In addition, advances in stream restoration and the current status of restoration policy will be addressed. Understanding the resilience or vulnerability of stream systems is important to setting expectations and taking steps to meet Bay conservation and restoration goals. Presentations by technical experts on the following topics will be followed by discussion involving all presenters.
Topics to include:
Baywide benthic indicator for stream assessment and using watershed characteristics to assess watershed (stream) health in unsurveyed areas. Ongoing stream monitoring efforts provide an effective assessment of stream condition for surveyed sites; however, many stream reaches remain unassessed. An evaluation of these unsurveyed reaches is necessary to optimize regional assessments of stream condition, which are useful in prioritizing conservation and restoration efforts. Watershed characteristics, such as land use, topography, and soils, are routinely linked to stream condition and we can leverage these data to predict conditions at unsurveyed locations given these data are widely available and can be easily summarized. We showcase an example using the composite Chessie BIBI indicator of stream health, which was generated from survey data across the Chesapeake Bay watershed, modeling this indicator using a suite of watershed characteristics. We then use this calibrated model to predict conditions to all streams in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. We will also show how a calibrated model can be used to project stream conditions to landscape and climate futures and detail our ongoing efforts on extending this approach to assess fish habitat. Results from these studies can be used to establish baseline conditions for restoration goals as well as monitor progress as additional data become available.
State of stream corridor protection and restoration efforts. Both policy and the various restoration techniques across the Bay will be highlighted. Monitoring programs are critical to understanding the response of streams to restoration activities—both in-stream and in upland areas. Federal, state, local and natural resource agency monitoring programs generate data on the physical, chemical and biological conditions of streams. These data are used to generate the Chessie BIBI. The Chessie BIBI is key to monitoring progress toward improving 10 percent of stream health and function. This topic will demonstrate a better understanding of factors affecting local stream health conditions as well as presenting information on the current status of stream restoration in the region.
What is watershed health and how do we measure it? Maintaining healthy streams and watersheds is a key component of watershed management programs throughout the Chesapeake Bay region. Monitoring watershed health can involve a suite of metrics for assessing the ecological condition of streams as well as characterizing conditions across the broader landscape. Well-established stream indicators include biological indices based on fish, benthic macroinvertebrates, or other biota. Physical habitat indicators based on rapid assessments can be supplemented with more detailed geomorphic data, along with flow, temperature, and water chemistry. In addition, broadscale geospatial data can characterize watershed features and stressors across the landscape at a watershed or catchment scale. The Chesapeake Healthy Watersheds Assessment has compiled catchment-scale data on six aspects of watershed health: landscape condition, biota, habitat, hydrology, geomorphology, and water quality. In combination with stream data, these metrics can serve as useful monitoring tools to provide better understanding of current conditions in streams and within their watershed context. Furthermore, they can serve as signals of change, providing an early warning system indicative of declining watershed health.
Watershed vulnerability and resilience: how can local and state governments respond to indications of watershed health degradation. The concepts of vulnerability and resilience are intertwined. A stream is vulnerable if it and/or its watershed are exposed to threats and susceptible to impact from them (e.g., clearing forests to develop a residential subdivision in the headwaters of a brook trout stream). A stream is resilient if it is either unimpacted by threats or quickly recovers from impact (e.g., streams in carbonate landscapes are more resilient to degradation from atmospheric acid deposition). Stream impacts of greatest concern are those that directly and adversely affect the health aquatic communities and the physical and chemical conditions required to support them. Emerging data and analyses (including high resolution streams and hydrogrophy), together with information from the Chesapeake Healthy Watersheds Assessment and forecasts of future land use, management, and climatic conditions will form the basis for assessing watershed vulnerability and resilience. States and local communities have the potential to play a vital role in identifying and protecting highly valued waterways and watersheds. Understanding how to effectively convey information about the signals of change of stream and watershed health across the Chesapeake Bay region, as well as identifying the various tools that may be used, primarily by local and state governments, to protect these watersheds is essential. Tracking the vital signs of stream and watershed health will provide managers with information valuable for preemptively responding to potential threats. This topic will present some of the policy options, incentives, and conservation and planning tools that can be implemented to reduce stressors and protect valued ecosystems.