Non-Biotic Stream Health Indicators

Description

The Stream Health Workgroup’s (SHWG) 2019 Logic and Action Plan includes action items to identify additional parameters or metrics to describe and quantify stream health to complement existing biological indicators, as described in Action #1.3 and #4.1 of the plan. To complete these action items, the SHWG developed three Phases (1, 2, and 3) in collaboration with the USGS:

Phase 1 was completed by USGS and identified the most significant stressors to stream health in the Bay. 

Phase 2 was initiated in 2020, completed by the Center for Watershed Protection (CWP) and funded by the Chesapeake Bay Program, and examined research to quantify the effects of selected water quality Best Management Practices (BMPs) on these stressors, linking how stressors are impacted by BMPs, and will help guide jurisdictions in the selection of BMPs to improve stream health beyond nutrient and sediment reductions. 

Phase 3 begins to address the question outlined in the SHWG’s Logic and Action Plan: “Following the implementation of management efforts, how is stream health changing, and how can we better characterize the response through non-biological metrics?” (Southerland et al., 2023)
 

Phase 3 Components

This third phase will build upon previous work and inform methodology to monitor stream response to management efforts. 

Hydromorphology Indicators (Complete)

This project conducted interviews with experts, reviewed data, created a framework, provided a data inventory matrix, and makes recommendations that may help develop multi-metric stream health indicators for hydraulics and geomorphology (hydromorphology). The report incorporates (1) the framework document and associated data sources spreadsheet (submitted by this team on December 16, 2022) and (2) recommendations for further indicator development and associated data inventory matrix (submitted April 14, 2023), which were revised based on comments from the Technical Advisory Group and members of the SHWG. Additional expert interviews, data discovery, comparison of GIS data 6 with field case studies, and an example overlay of relevant GIS layers were also conducted to produce this report.

Physiochemical Indicators (In Progress)

Championed by Tetra Tech, Phase 3B: Physicochemical Indicators will compliment the hydromorphology indicators and provide inform recommendations to develop a suite of non-biotic metrics of stream health.