Inland West Watershed Reconnaissance in R4

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Boise Aquatic Sciences Lab
322 East Front Street
Suite 401
Boise, ID 83702

(208) 373-4340
(208) 373-4391 (FAX)

Technology Transfer

Inland West Watershed Reconnaissance in R4

Sample poster: Lemhi Subbasin

Background:

Recently the Chief of the Forest Service identified watershed health and restoration as a key emphasis area in the Forest Service Natural Resource Agenda. The implications for our on-the-ground management strategies are to:

make maintenance and restoration of watershed health an overriding priority in future forest plans and provide measures for monitoring purposes.
increase stream and riparian area restoration by 40% by 1999.
effect a 30% increase in habitat restoration and conservation of Threatened, Endangered, and Sensitive species.
improve efforts to prevent non-native species from entering or spreading in watersheds.

This coincides with the Regional Forester's agenda for restoring populations of Bonneville cutthroat trout, as per the "Conservation Agreement and Strategy for Bonneville Cutthroat Trout in the State of Utah."

Objectives:

We are proactively pursuing these agenda. The Technology Transfer Group works closely with the Fish Habitat Unit at the Boise location of the Rocky Mountain Research Station. Our objective is to develop practical applications of scientific findings for on-the-ground management. This includes exploring new ways to use current technology, such as GIS and remote sensing, and modeling, such as population viability analysis. One current interest is the use of multi-scale analysis to assess the current condition of fish habitat and to understand what effect that has on the distribution and population viability of native fish species. This integrates our newly emerging understanding and appreciation of metapopulation theory with landscape processes.

Data Resources:

Region 4 is currently participating in the Inland West Water Initiative. One potential product of this project is a seamless spatial coverage of the current knowledge of the condition of our watersheds and of the distribution of native fish. Attached to that coverage will be a tabular dataset of the following items:

	Watershed Geomorphic Integrity - soil/ hydrologic functions; physical soil-stream resilience.
	Crucial Segments - outstanding fishery, instream flow, public water supply, outstanding recreation, cultural site, Research Natural Area.
	Damaged Segments - bank damage, sediment load, channel modification, flow disruption, thermal change, chemical contamination, biological stress.
	Watershed Water Quality Integrity - derived from damaged segments layer.
	Watershed Vulnerability - relative risk to disturbance.
	Biotic Information - status and distribution of fish (species of concern and introduced species) on NFS lands.
	Water Infrastructure - dams and diversions.

Our lab has assembled the status calls for several Cutthroat Trout (Bonneville, Colorado River and Yellowstone, as well as known hybrid populations), other imperiled native species, such as, Desert Sucker, Spinedace, Utah Chub, AND many of those pesky introduced species - Rainbow, Brook, and Brown Trouts, Arctic Grayling, Bass, Kokanee, Golden Trout. These databases can be joined, in ArcView, to the spatial coverage for the 6^th code Hydrologic Units to produce a display of the known distribution and status of any of these species across Region 4. See Posters.

What's in the future?

These data, when combined with a map of the historical distribution of fish species of interest and with information from other landowners and agencies, will provide the framework for developing restoration and conservation strategies. Two benefits occur:

Collaborative stewardship encourages joint participation to effect a successful outcome, and
A broad-scale plan allows us to focus limited federal funds, for inventory or rehabilitation, in the most critical watersheds.

USDA Forest Service - RMRS - Boise Aquatic Sciences Lab
Last Modified: Monday, 09 August 2010 at 19:17:18 EDT