Grantee Research Project Results
2004 Progress Report: Integrated Assessment of Watersheds
EPA Grant Number: R828684C003Subproject: this is subproject number 003 , established and managed by the Center Director under grant R828684
(EPA does not fund or establish subprojects; EPA awards and manages the overall grant for this center).
Center: Center for Integrated Multi‐scale Nutrient Pollution Solutions
Center Director: Shortle, James S.
Title: Integrated Assessment of Watersheds
Investigators: Brooks, Robert P. , Rheinhardt, Rick D. , Weller, Donald E. , Jordan, Thomas E. , Whigham, Dennis F. , Wardrop, Denice Heller , O'Connell, Timothy J. , Brinson, Mark M. , Hershner, Carl
Current Investigators: Brooks, Robert P. , Weller, Donald E. , Havens, Kirk , Brinson, Mark M. , Rheinhardt, Rick D. , Hite, Jeremy T. , King, Ryan , Easterling, Mary M. , Bishop, Joseph A. , Rubbo, Jennifer , Armstrong, Brian K. , Baker, Matthew , O'Brien, David
Institution: Pennsylvania State University , Virginia Institute of Marine Science , Smithsonian Environmental Research Center , East Carolina University
Current Institution: Pennsylvania State University , Smithsonian Environmental Research Center , East Carolina University , Virginia Institute of Marine Science
EPA Project Officer: Packard, Benjamin H
Project Period: March 1, 2001 through February 28, 2005 (Extended to February 28, 2006)
Project Period Covered by this Report: March 1, 2003 through February 28, 2004
RFA: Environmental Indicators in the Estuarine Environment Research Program (2000) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Ecological Indicators/Assessment/Restoration , Water , Aquatic Ecosystems
Objective:
This is the third of four subprojects under the Atlantic Slope Consortium (ASC) center. The objective of this subproject is to develop and test indicators of the biogeochemical health and integrity of watersheds, relate those indicators to environmental conditions, assess the predictability of landscape characteristics to indicator responses, and use those predictions to characterize the effects of watershed discharges on downstream riverine and estuarine health.
Progress Summary:
Several interactive teams are working on this multi-institutional subproject. Their activities during Year 4 of the project are discussed below.
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) Watershed and Spatial Analysis Team
As part of the overall objective to develop and verify geographical indicators to predict water, sediment, and nutrient losses from watersheds, this team’s primary goal is to improve existing statistical models predicting nutrient and sediment losses from geographic data. A secondary goal is to quantify the impact of wetlands and riparian conditions on watershed discharges. Our approach involves: (1) exploring the efficacy of additional geographic data (beyond physiographic province and land use/land cover) in predicting nutrient concentrations and (2) incorporating information about the spatial arrangement of landscape features, particularly source areas and riparian forests, to test hypotheses about nutrient and sediment transport.
Research activities for Year 4 of the project included:
- Exploring the effects of different land cover data sets on predictions of nutrient discharge. Results suggest that choice of landcover data has a significant impact on the relative proportions of landcover classes and resulting relationships with measured nutrient concentrations.
- Exploring the relationship between soil properties and nutrient discharge, using soils data at two different levels of resolution.
- Exploring the effects of improved hydrologic characterization on watershed predictions of nutrient export. A variety of geographic datasets were compiled and analyzed for this purpose.
- Evaluating the influence of wetlands in watershed predictions of nutrient discharge. We used model-based predictions of saturated area to model wetlands and predict nutrient concentrations, then compared these results to our National Wetland Inventory predictions.
- Developing and tested new methods for automated watershed delineation and flowpath modeling.
- Developing a novel geographic method to examine effects of stream map resolution on buffer characteristics. Stream map resolution had a highly significant impact on the aerial extent of near-stream lands considered in our riparian metric analysis (and thus the measured patterns of riparian buffers), though the effect of increasing resolution differed across physiographic regions. These results have implications for indicator studies that use stream buffers as predictors.
- Developing GIS routines and a computer program for evaluating the effects of transport distance from source landscapes to streams and watershed outlets. Distance weights were found to improve assessment of biotic thresholds in watersheds and improve nutrient discharge predictions by 22 percent in Coastal Plain watersheds. This technique also was applied to data developed by other ASC researchers focusing on polychlorinated biphenyl concentrations in white perch and the Bird Integrity Index.
- Exploring the effects of improved mapping/characterization of riparian buffers. We developed GIS routines for identifying and mapping contiguous riparian forests, mean buffer width, proportion of gaps, and crop loadings to specific buffers to improve accuracy of riparian buffer characterization. We refined metrics and improved analyses to illustrate patterns of riparian buffers, as well as unique effects on nutrient concentrations.
- Developing a novel method for estimating subsurface connectivity among landcover, riparian areas, and stream channels for further analysis.
East Carolina University (ECU) Watershed Team
Data from the three ASC watersheds in North Carolina (60 sites) were analyzed to determine which of the measured indicators are most applicable for estimating condition of headwater ecosystems in North Carolina. Results of the preliminary analysis were presented at the all-hands ASC meeting in March 2004. In 2005, ECU took the lead in using the indicator data from the three North Carolina watersheds to test the application of the data in conducting reach and watershed assessments. A paper is in its final stages of preparation, for eventual submission to Ecological Indicators.
During the Year 4 of the project, ECU worked with the other members of the ASC Watersheds working group in analyzing watershed data. ECU took the lead in analyzing canopy vegetation data to determine how composition varies across physiographic provinces. Ordinations have been produced, and ECU has taken the lead in writing the results for the final report and/or as part of a paper to be submitted for peer review.
ECU developed a final version of an integrative riparian assessment procedure for the North Carolina Ecosystem Enhancement Program (NCEEP). The procedure was based on the ASC indicator effort and adapted for use in coastal plain watersheds. The procedure was then tested in three North Carolina watersheds chosen by NCEEP. We trained environmental consultants contracted by NCEEP on how to use the method before they applied the procedure in randomly chosen reaches in six watersheds. We used the collected indicator data to diagnose problems in the watersheds, compare conditions among watersheds, and determine the precision of users in scoring indicators.
Penn State Watershed Team and Multi-Institutional Activities
Development of a Stream, Wetland, Riparian (SWR) Index. Data were collected the previous year using a rapid assessment protocol for sampling Streams, Wetlands, and Riparian areas (SWR protocol) that was developed as part of this project. In Year 4, these data were used to create a composite assessment of condition (the SWR Index) for these three interrelated components of aquatic ecosystems. Steps in index development included extraction of metrics by summarizing measurement data, selection of a subset of metrics, conversion of each metric to a scale of 0 to 1, refinement of a conceptual model of how these components of the stream system relate to each other, and combining the metrics into an index based on the conceptual model.
Values of the Index were then compared with Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) values collected as part of the Maryland Biological Stream Survey for fish and benthic macro-invertebrates in selected watersheds of the study region. For the most part, the SWR Index agreed with these more labor-intensive biotic indices when compared on a site-to-site basis.
The SWR Index was also compared with two landscape-level (GIS-based) indices of condition: the first based on landscape characteristics in a 1-km radius circle around each SWR sample point, and the second based on landscape in the entire HUC-14 watershed. Agreement was better for the former than the latter. In cases where there was disagreement between the two indices, specific components of the indices were examined to diagnose the causes of degraded condition and to reconcile differences. Work continues on developing better methods for scaling the SWR index from the site to the watershed level.
Contributions to Estuarine and Great Lakes Environmental Indicators (EaGLe) Program’s Data Committee. The ASC has been working with the EaGLes data committee to develop protocols for long-term storage of data, data organization, data catalogues, metadata creation, and backup of this system. The ASC is in the process of compiling metadata describing each of the datasets developed over the course of the project. The datasets and associated metadata will be archived in a central location along with that from other EaGLes projects and made accessible to future researchers at an appropriate point in time. The target date for compilation of this information is October 1, 2005.
Future Activities:
All three teams that comprise this subproject will work together to improve integration of the various components. Specific analyses will include integration of distance-weighted landscape measures developed by the SERC team with the landscape metrics used in the SWR component of the study and comparison of these combined measures with biotic indices and the SWR Index. We also will explore an alternative method for ranking watersheds according to condition that takes into account the degree of agreement (or disagreement) of metric scores and expresses this as an uncertainty measure.
The SERC Watershed and Spatial Analysis team will be testing the effect of additional watershed descriptors such as impervious surface, septic density, and population density and using improved statistical models to provide expectations for the estuarine subproject.
Members of all three teams will make presentations and work on additional publications, as well as contribute to the final project report.
Journal Articles on this Report : 1 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other subproject views: | All 45 publications | 6 publications in selected types | All 6 journal articles |
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Other center views: | All 166 publications | 51 publications in selected types | All 44 journal articles |
Type | Citation | ||
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Wardrop DH, Bishop JA, Easterling M, Hychka K, Myers W, Patil GP, Taillie C. Use of landscape and land use parameters for classification and characterization of watersheds in the mid-Atlantic across five physiographic provinces. Environmental and Ecological Statistics 2005;12(2):209-223. |
R828684 (2002) R828684 (Final) R828684C003 (2003) R828684C003 (2004) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
ecological indicator, integrated assessment, aquatic ecosystem, wetland, stream, riparian, watershed, biological integrity, landscape ecology, geographic information systems, GIS, Mid-Atlantic, terrestrial ecosystems, watersheds, estuarine research, Atlantic Slope Consortium, Chesapeake Bay, aquatic biota, aquatic habitat,, RFA, Scientific Discipline, ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, Geographic Area, Water, ECOSYSTEMS, Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, estuarine research, Hydrology, Water & Watershed, Ecosystem/Assessment/Indicators, Ecosystem Protection, Economics, Aquatic Ecosystems, Terrestrial Ecosystems, Ecological Monitoring, Mid-Atlantic, Ecological Risk Assessment, Ecology and Ecosystems, Biology, Watersheds, Ecological Indicators, Risk Assessment, ecological exposure, bioindicator, coastal ecosystem, degradation, biogeochemical study, remote sensing, water sheds, aquatic biota , ecosystem assessment, estuaries, optical indicators, nutrients, aquatic habitat, socioeconomics, submerged aquatic vegetation, biomonitoring, ecological assessment, ecosystem indicators, estuarine ecosystems, integrated assessment, Atlantic Slope Consortium, environmental stress, coastal ecosystems, integrative indicators, environmental indicators, water quality, ecology assessment models, watershed assessment, Chesapeake BayRelevant Websites:
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractMain Center Abstract and Reports:
R828684 Center for Integrated Multi‐scale Nutrient Pollution Solutions Subprojects under this Center: (EPA does not fund or establish subprojects; EPA awards and manages the overall grant for this center).
R828684C001 Integrated Assessment of Estuarine Ecosystems
R828684C002 Development of an Optical Indicator of Habitat Suitability for Submersed Aquatic Vegetation
R828684C003 Integrated Assessment of Watersheds
R828684C004 Socioeconomic and Institutional Research
The 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.
Project Research Results
6 journal articles for this subproject
Main Center: R828684
166 publications for this center
44 journal articles for this center