Rangeland Ecology & Management

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EVALUATING STREAM CONDITIONS USING LONG-TERM MONITORING DATA COLLECTED BY FOREST SERVICE AND THE BLM
Author
Archer, Eric K.
Meredith, Christy
Al-Chokhachy, Robert
Publisher
Society for Range Management
Publication Year
2015
Body

The PIBO Effectiveness Program is a large scale stream habitat monitoring program on public lands throughout the interior Columbia and Missouri River drainages. The goal of the program is to evaluate the status and trends of stream condition and to relate the effects of land management back to trends in fish habitat conditions. To address these needs, we assess stream condition using multiple lines of evidence including water temperature, macroinvertebrate species loss and an index of physical habitat condition. PIBO's approach is to compare the status of stream conditions at sites in ‘managed' watersheds (watersheds exposed to disturbance from various management actions) to habitat conditions at sites within ‘reference', or relatively pristine, watersheds, which are used as a benchmark or expected condition. Because all streams are affected by natural disturbance, in assessing status we are most interested in how the range of stream habitat conditions expressed at managed sites compares to what would be expected if the stream had experienced only natural disturbance. For over 15 years the PIBO program has evaluated over 2400 sites across the study area. These sites are repeated on a five year rotating panel and ~ ¾ of them have been sampled 3 or more times.

Language
English
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Conference Proceedings
Conference Name
SRM Sacramento, CA