Watershed Program Review

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Monongahela National Forest

• Watershed Program Review
• NHD Stewardship Meeting

August 11, 2009
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Watershed Program

• Stream Surveys and Monitoring
• Planning, Design, and Analysis
• Program Actions and Project Implementation
• Program Reporting

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Watershed ProgramStream Survey and Monitoring
Efforts

• Project-level Surveys and Monitoring
• Aquatic Ecological Unit Inventory
• Stream Water Temperature Monitoring
• Stream Water Chemistry Monitoring
• Aquatic Organism Passage Surveys (road stream
  crossings)

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Stream Surveys and Monitoring Project-level

• Locate/validate water resource features within
  project areas
• Identify water resource issues (existing and
  potential) related to project activities
• Assemble or collect data for project analyses,
  alternative development, and monitoring

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Stream Surveys and Monitoring Aquatic Ecological
Unit Inventory
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Stream Surveys and Monitoring Aquatic Ecological
Unit Inventory

• Inventory/Assessment
• Stream Bank Stability
• Riffle Stability
• In-stream Habitat
• In-stream Cover
• Large Woody Debris
• Spawning Gravel
• Fish Populations

• Rosgen Channel Type
• Valley Width
• Valley Channel Slope
• Bankful Channel Width
• Bankful Channel Depth
• Flood-prone Width
• Channel Sinuosity
• Substrate Classification

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Stream Surveys and Monitoring Aquatic Ecological
Unit Inventory
More than 95 AEUI reaches inventoried since 2002
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Stream Surveys and Monitoring Stream Water
Chemistry Monitoring
235 stream sites monitored spring and fall for
water chemistry conditions since 2001
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Stream Surveys and Monitoring Stream Water
Temperature Monitoring
More than 170 stream sites monitored since 2003
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Stream Surveys and Monitoring Aquatic Organism
Passage
85 Sites surveyed since 2003
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Planning, Design, and Analysis
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Planning, Design, and Analysis
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Planning, Design, and Analysis

• Use 6th level HUCs as the standard land unit for
  analyzing cumulative watershed effects
• Use the NHD to initially identify aquatic
  resources within analysis areas and locate them
  spatially relative to other features
• Attribute NHD information with additional or
  refined data attained from field surveys and
  other reviews
• Use GIS applications with HUC delineations and
  refined NHD data to characterize watershed
  conditions, assist with developing project
  recommendations, and provide a baseline for
  analyses and monitoring efforts

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Action and Implementation
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Reporting

• Watershed PART assess watershed condition at
  the 6th level HUC and track changes through time
• Aquatic Surveys - Forest Service corporate
  database (formerly NRIS-Water) for aquatic
  resources NHD framework

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Concluding Remarks

• 6th level HUCs are the fundamental land unit used
  by the Forests watershed program to organize
  data, analyze conditions, and report
  accomplishments.
• Stability in HUC delineations is needed to
  provide a consistent land unit for managing and
  analyzing data.
• NHD is the backbone for various components of the
  Forests watershed program - project planning and
  design, project analyses and monitoring, and
  accomplishment tracking and reporting.
• Though highly valuable in its current form, NHD
  will have greater utility for the Forest when it
  is more inclusive of the entire stream network
  (particularly small intermittent and ephemeral
  streams) and when it distinguishes between
  perennial, intermittent, and ephemeral streams.

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• Water is the most critical resource issue of our
  lifetime and our childrens lifetime. The health
  of our waters is the principal measure of how we
  live on the land - Luna Leopold

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