Grantee Research Project Results
2002 Progress Report: Assabet River StreamWatch: Monitoring and Timely Reporting of Streamflow and Water Quality to Assess Habitat Stress for Native Fish Populations in the Assabet River Watershed, Massachusetts
EPA Grant Number: R829323Title: Assabet River StreamWatch: Monitoring and Timely Reporting of Streamflow and Water Quality to Assess Habitat Stress for Native Fish Populations in the Assabet River Watershed, Massachusetts
Investigators: Blazar, Paul , Armstrong, D. E. , Blatt, Julia , Bennett, Laurie , Wagner, Lou , Weiskel, Peter , Socolow, Roy , Beede, Susan , Flint, Suzanne , Richards, Todd
Institution: Town of Hudson , United States Geological Survey , Massachusetts Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Environmental Law Enforcement , Massachusetts Audubon Society , Organization for the Assabet River
Current Institution: Town of Hudson , Massachusetts Audubon Society , Massachusetts Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Environmental Law Enforcement , Organization for the Assabet River , United States Geological Survey
EPA Project Officer: Packard, Benjamin H
Project Period: January 1, 2002 through December 31, 2003 (Extended to December 31, 2004)
Project Period Covered by this Report: January 1, 2002 through December 31, 2003
Project Amount: $432,692
RFA: Environmental Monitoring for Public Access and Community Tracking (EMPACT) (2001) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Environmental Statistics , Water , Aquatic Ecosystems , Air , Ecological Indicators/Assessment/Restoration
Objective:
The Assabet River StreamWatch project characterizes native fish habitat by evaluating streamflow and water quality in the main sub-basins of the Assabet River during the summer. The Assabet River mainstem is nutrient saturated and large reductions in nutrient loads are needed to restore water quality in the river. For load reductions to be effective, base flow in the river and its major tributaries must be preserved or augmented. The water resources of the entire basin are already under the combined strain of a rapidly growing population and of water management practices that result in the net transfer of water out of the sub-basins. Solving these problems will require: (1) a better understanding of water budgets and water quality in the subwatersheds; and (2) a public constituency willing to change their personal water consumption habits and to allocate the resources needed to change water management infrastructures. This project will provide weekly streamflow, water quality, and habitat condition information to the public, local decision makers, and scientists.
This project focuses on fish habitat using an index to convey the data. An index brings information from multiple sources together into a single number, like a grade, that can be understood at a glance. StreamWatch's new "Habitat Health Index" relates the streamflow and water quality conditions measured weekly to habitat requirements of target populations of native fish. In developing the Habitat Health Index, we considered the following: recommended summertime streamflows, long-term groundwater levels, habitat availability, water quality standards, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Ecoregion nutrient data. To emphasize their connection to habitat health, streamflow and water quality indices also have been developed. The weekly index readings will be posted on signboards in the project towns or in local newspapers and on the project's Web site. The Web site provides timely dissemination of geospatially linked data and background information. A series of workshops has been developed to present and promote water conservation via ecological landscaping.
Progress Summary:
During the spring of 2002, StreamWatch project partners developed the capacity and the preliminary information to conduct a pilot project to deliver weekly streamflow, water quality, and habitat health data on Danforth Brook in the Assabet River Watershed. During the summer of 2002 (June 15th to October 1st), the Organization for the Assabet River staff and volunteers conducted the pilot project, posting weekly data for Danforth Brook on the project's Web site (www.assabetriver.org/streamwatch Exit ).
Partners have worked to conduct the pilot and start developing the information for the full project. USGS and OAR have conducted initial reconnaissance on tributary sites throughout the watershed, selecting 10 sites for the project. The USGS also installed and surveyed staff gages at four tributary sites and one mainstem site for streamflow measurements. Previously installed staff gauges were used at other four sites; one of the initially selected sites was not useable when a beaver dam put the site in backwater. The USGS developed rating curves relating staff gauge height to streamflow for the Danforth, Elizabeth, and Nashoba Brooks.
The USGS installed and surveyed sites for the minimum streamflow assessment at five locations. Streamflow assessment sites at Danforth and Elizabeth Brooks were developed by the USGS (using data collected through SteamWatch and USGS' statewide habitat project) and results of those analyses were published in Parker and Armstrong's "Preliminary Assessment of Streamflow Requirements for Habitat Protection for Selected Sites on the Assabet and Charles Rivers, Eastern Massachusetts" (USGS Open-File Report 02-340).
With training from USGS, OAR staff developed the capacity to make streamflow measurements using Pygmy and AA flow meters and started making streamflow measurements at the gauge and minimum streamflow assessment sites. The OAR developed the project Web site including an interface for weekly data delivery and background information. Background information includes: water use in the basin, the groundwater and surface water cycle, local history for Danforth Brook, fish in the watershed (from 2001 and historic surveys), and information on protecting streams and fish. For the fish description section, OAR recieved permission to use pictures from the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, Karsten Hartel at the Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology, and the American Fisheries Society. The innovative and comprehensive StreamWatch Web sites earned OAR's Web site an Eddy Award from American Rivers, Inc. (a national river conservation group) in the fall of 2002.
The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife provided the data from their summer 2001 fish surveys of the watershed, helped select appropriate indicator fish for the project streams, and provided many of the fish pictures for the project's Web site. The Division also provided access to data from old fish surveys in their archives. OAR staff collected old fisheries survey information and created a database of the most complete survey.
OAR staff conducted a review of literature and developed indices for streamflow, water quality, and overall habitat health for Danforth Brook. Following the precedent of water quality indices, the Habitat Health Index is arranged so that the environmental quality increases with increasing index (I = 1 for very poor conditions; I = 5 for ideal conditions). Calculation of an environmental index consists of two steps: (1) calculation of scores for each of the parameters used in the index; and (2) aggregation of the individual scores into the overall index. The results can be reported as the overall index and/or parts of the index ("subindices") broken out separately. The "Habitat Health Index" is our overall index with the "Water Quality" and "Flow" subindices reported separately to provide more information on where the problem might lie if the overall reading is low. Staff from the USGS and Massachusetts Audubon Society reviewed the indices. A full description of the Habitat Health Index can be found on the StreamWatch Web Site at www.assabetriver.org/streamwatch/howindex.html Exit .
As a part of their ongoing water sampling program, OAR recruited, trained, and coordinated 32 volunteers to take water quality samples and staff gauge readings. Volunteers took weekly staff gauge readings and monthly water quality samples from June to October 2002. Streamflow, water quality, and habitat health data and indices were posted on the project's Web site each week. The Web site statistics show that the StreamWatch section of the OAR page got approximately 12,000 requests for pages since it went online in June; that is about 12 people per day viewing 10 pages each of the site.
The Massachusetts Audubon Society, the Ecological Landscaping Association, and OAR developed and presented two workshops on ecological landscaping. The workshops emphasized the connection between outdoor water use, landscaping and lawn care practices, and the health of local streams. Each workshop attracted 60-70 attendees.
The only significant setbacks to the project have come from weather and beaver activity. Beaver activity forced the relocation of the staff gauge on one stream and the complete abandonment of another initially selected stream. The drought that affected the northeastern United States during the fall of 2001 and summer of 2002 slowed the collection of streamflow measurements for rating curve development (i.e., there were no higher flows to measure until late October 2002) and minimum streamflow analysis.
Future Activities:
In the second year of the StreamWatch project, partners plan to make the measurements needed to complete the six remaining stage/discharge rating curves and the five remaining minimum streamflow analyses by spring of 2003. We anticipate that we will continue to collect measurements during the summer of 2003 to maintain the rating curves and to conduct minimum streamflow analyses on two additional sites in the watershed to check the accuracy of the initial analyses. Curbside signs will be made to post the habitat index for each project stream and OAR will work with watershed towns to post the signs in central locations during the summer. During the summer of 2003, we anticipate data delivery via curbside signs or newspapers and on the project's Web site from all nine project sites. Two more ecological landscaping workshops will be delivered in towns of the watershed. Finally, we expect to present the findings of the project at a national conference and to submit a paper on the Habitat Health Index in the fall of 2003.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 8 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
Northeast, MA, EPA Region 14, hydrology, biology, target fish population, R2 Cross Method, critical area analysis, EPA Region 1., RFA, Scientific Discipline, Water, ECOSYSTEMS, Geographic Area, Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, RESEARCH, Ground Water, Water & Watershed, State, Monitoring/Modeling, Monitoring, Civil/Environmental Engineering, Wet Weather Flows, Terrestrial Ecosystems, Environmental Monitoring, Ecological Risk Assessment, Urban and Regional Planning, Watersheds, aquatic ecosystem, EMPACT, remote sensing, hydrologic dynamics, Assabet River, nutrient transport, wetlands, community-based approach, streams, nutrients, downstream effects, runoff, sediment transport, stream ecosystems, Massachusetts (MA), community water quality information system, stormwater, community outreach, community tracking, nutrient monitoring , water quality, Massachusetts, community partnerships, aquatic ecosystems, ecological models, nutrient transport model, stormwater runoff, ecology assessment models, water management options, watershed assessment, land management, stream ecosystem, storm water, Storm Water Management Model, land useRelevant Websites:
http://www.assabetriver.org/streamwatch Exit
http://water.usgs.gov/pubs/of/ofr02-340/ Exit
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.