Monitoring wadeable stream habitat conditions in Southeast Coast Network parks: Protocol narrative

McDonald, Jacob; Gregory, M.; Riley, Jeffrey; Starkey, Eric

doi:10.36967/2254874

The Southeast Coast Network (SECN) has initiated a monitoring effort to assess habitat conditions in wadeable streams at national parks, recreation areas, battlefields, and monuments in Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. This monitoring effort includes Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, Congaree National Park, Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, and Ocmulgee National Monument. Stream habitat monitoring was implemented in 2016, and focuses specifically on providing relevant data to assess the physical condition of Piedmont and upper Coastal Plain streams with respect to aquatic and riparian habitats and how these habitats may be changing over time. The habitat assessment methods proposed in this protocol rely on standard data collection methods and standard operating procedures currently in use by the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and U.S. Forest Service that have been modified to better meet the needs of National Park Service (NPS) managers. The Southeast Coast Network’s wadeable stream protocol was developed to begin a monitoring program that will provide insight into the status of, and trends in, stream and riparian habitat conditions. The number of reaches surveyed at each park is dependent on the spatial extent of the park and the total number of wadeable streams that are present within park boundaries. Regardless of the size of the park and the number of reaches that are to be monitored, selected reaches (1) are representative of the processes influencing the streams in each park; (2) can address current and anticipated management concerns, and (3) offer the most utility for future complementary studies. For the purposes of this protocol, wadeable streams are narrowly defined as small- to medium-sized, perennially-flowing waterbodies with identifiable channel banks that can be accessed and traversed without the use of a watercraft. The wadeable streams referred to herein do not include ephemeral channel-like features typically found on large river flood plains and within hillslope gully systems. The objectives of this protocol are to: • Determine the status of upstream watershed characteristics such as basin area, basin slope, and drainage density, and changes to land cover that may affect stream habitat; • Determine the status of and trends in the geomorphic dimensions (cross-sectional morphology) of selected wadeable stream reaches including channel widths, bank characteristics (e.g., heights, angles, and vegetative cover), and reach slope and sinuosity; and • Determine the status of and trends in physical measures of benthic and riparian habitat features present in selected wadeable stream reaches such as the size, type, and distribution of bed sediment and large woody debris, the distribution of geomorphic channel units, and canopy cover. In addition to these monitoring objectives, the data collected under this protocol allows the network to broadly summarize the wadeable stream resources within SECN parks, highlighting similarities and differences in these resources as they relate to stream habitat and geomorphic conditions. This protocol also makes a strong case for the relevance of monitoring wadeable stream habitats by highlighting known issues related to stream habitats in SECN parks; and identifying the important linkages between the physical condition of streams and park resources. Most importantly, the data collected by following this protocol provide early warnings of changing conditions and help to inform managers of major changes in stream channel habitat. Data collected as part of this effort are stored locally on the SECN internal file server and uploaded annually to the Integrated Resource Management Applications (IRMA) website. In addition to utilizing customized data handling and reporting procedures, this protocol, and its accompanying standard operating procedures, sets guidelines for data...

Monitoring wadeable stream habitat conditions in Southeast Coast Network parks: Protocol narrative

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