Central Plains Center for BioAssessment

Central Plains Center Central Plains Center for BioAssessmentfor BioAssessment

Debbie BakerDebbie Baker

An overview of our projects.An overview of our projects.

CC

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• Facilitate coordination of regional-based nutrient criteria and biocriteria for waterbodies of USEPA Region 7.

History

Region

Nutrient and Biocriteria Workgroups

• EPA's Clean Water Action Plan 1998• Goal – protect aquatic life from nutrient

overenrichment. • USEPA Region 7, Kansas City• Nebraska• Iowa• Kansas• Missouri

Nutrient Criteria• Goal – establish draft benchmark nutrient criteria for

lakes, streams, and wetlands of the US EPA Region 7 and the Central Plains Region.

Streams

Nutrient Criteria cont’d

Biocriteria workgroup• Goal - adoption of narrative biological criteria as part of State water quality standards.• Annual meetings (workshops) available on website.• Symposia open to others.• Currently macroinvertebrate database to examine reference stream conditions.

National Park Service• Heartland Network Inventory and

Monitoring Program

• Develop monitoring plan for surface waters

• Literature, database, GIS, analyses

• 15 parks

DO monitoring

• Kansas TMDL streams• Measure DO levels in water column and oxygen demand (BOD and SOD)• Long-term productivity at Soldier and Cedar Creeks

REMAP

• KDWP sampled streams 2000/2001

• LeeAnn taxonomist for 2001 bugs

• KU museum ID fish

• Liz format data

• Raw data metrics

Physical Habitat Variables(1) Channel morphology

• Mean thalweg depth (m) (xdepth)• Standard deviation of thalweg depth (cm) (sddepth)• Mean wetted width (m) (xwidth)• Mean wetted width x depth (m2) (xwxd)• Mean residual depth (m2/100 m reach length)=cm (rp100)• Mean bankfull width (m) (xbkf_w)• Mean bankfull height (m) (xbkf_h)• Mean incision height (m) (xinc_h)• Channel Sinuosity (sinu)• Water Surface gradient over reach (%) (xslope)

NDEQ Dec. 2000

Mean Bankfull Height (m) From All Basins In Nebraska, 1994-95 REMAP

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0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20 1.40 1.60

Mean Bankfull Height (m) (XBKF_H)

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90% Confi dence Bounds

Perennial Sites = box

Hand-picked Sites = triangle

NDEQ Dec. 2000

Wadeable Stream Assessment

• National EPA study on over 500 randomly chosen streams

• Follow-up to study in Western and Atlantic states

• REMAP methods• Sample TX and NE streams• Sort and identify macroinvertebrates from

TX, NE, KS, MO, and OK

Outreach