RELATION OF MACROINVERTEBRATE COMMUNITY IMPAIRMENT TO CATCHMENT CHARACTERISTICS IN NEW JERSEY STREAMS¹

Abstract

The level of macroinvertebrate community impairment was statistically related to selected basin and water-quality characteristics in New Jersey streams. More than 700 ambient biomonitoring stations were chosen to evaluate potential and known anthropogenic effects. Macroinvertebrate communities were assessed with a modified rapid-bioassessment approach using three impairment ratings (nonimpaired, moderately impaired, and severely impaired). Maximum-likelihood multiple logistic-regression analysis was used to develop equations defining the probability of community impairment above predetermined impairment levels. Seven of the original 140 explanatory variables were highly related to the level of community impairment. Explanatory variables found to be most useful for predicting severe macroinvertebrate community impairment were the amount of urban land and total flow of municipal effluent. Area underlain by the Reading Prong physiographic region and amount of forested land were inversely related to severe impairment. Nonparametric analysis of variance on rank-transformed bioassessment scores was used to evaluate differences in level of impairment among physiographic regions and major drainage areas simultaneously. Rejection of the null hypothesis indicated that the levels of impairment among all six physiographic regions and five major drainage areas were not equal. Physiographic regions located in the less urbanized northwest portion of New Jersey were not significantly different from each other and had the lowest occurrence of severely impaired macroinvertebrate communities. Physiographic regions containing urban centers had a higher probability of exhibiting a severely impaired macroinvertebrate community. Analysis of major drainage areas indicates that levels of impairment in the Atlantic Coastal Rivers drainage area differed significantly from those in the Lower Delaware River drainage area.

Overview and application of the National Aquatic Ecological Monitoring Program (NAEMP) in Korea

“…The macroinvertebrate and fish classes showed a closer relationship with BOD (r= 0.50, 0.43, respectively) than with habitat quality (r= 0.41, 0.32, respectively), confirming the findings of previous studies. Nonetheless, numerous studies have reported that watershed land use influences the physical and chemical characteristics of streams, including water and habitat quality (Omernik et al, 1981;Osborne and Wiley, 1988;Richards et al, 1993;Allan, 1995;Richards et al, 1996;Allan et al, 1997), and the ecological communities in streams (Roth et al, 1996;Allan et al, 1997;Kennen, 1999;Wang et al, 2001;Roy et al, 2003;Moerke and Lamberti, 2006). Companion studies under NAEMP at site and regional scales have indicated significant relationships between human land uses, including urban and agricultural land uses, and all biological criteria for streams in Korea; human uses have been found to negatively affect biological criteria, while natural areas have shown positive effects on biological communities in streams (Wallace et al, 1997;Moore and Palmer, 2005).…”

Use of ecological thresholds to assess recovery in lotic ecosystems

“…Substantial evidence indicates that land cover conversion to various forms of urban use negatively affects many freshwater taxa (Meador et al 2005, Roy et al 2005, Stranko et al 2008 and entire communities (Kennen 1999, Blakely et al 2006, Smith and Lamp 2008. General rules of thumb exist for levels of impervious surface cover (ISC) that are associated with stream degradation (e.g., loss of biological integrity beyond 10% ISC in the watershed; reviewed by Schueler et al 2009), but few more explicit relationships between ISC and taxon declines have been developed.…”

Causal Assessment in Environmental Studies

“…Other examples involve management actions that deliberately break causal processes that were important drivers for the original observed associations. For example, there is a strong statistical association between percent impervious surfaces (e.g., parking lots, sidewalks) and indices of biological condition [9][10][11] . In an effort to mitigate the adverse effects of urban development on stream biological condition, storm water managers are experimenting with different methods for disconnecting impervious surfaces from water bodies [12] .…”