research project details
Project Title: Classifying and Prioritizing Watersheds for Protection and
Restoration
Investigator(s): Robert Brooks
Sponsor: United States Environmental Protection Agency
Environmental Problem Addressed:
Protection and restoration of wetlands.
Research Project Objectives:
Objectives of this research project are to develop, validate, and apply a hierarchical, geographically-independent classification of watersheds based on pre-existing environmental data.
Summary:
Natural resource managers need to be able to put watersheds into categories for several reasons, including identifying reference conditions, understanding the types of environmental degradation, designing monitoring studies, and narrowing the restoration options. For example, a defensible "bundling" of watersheds according to their characteristics, problems, and restoration feasibilities may allow "off-the-shelf" TMDL plans.
This project has three major parts:
- Using multivariate statistics, the researchers will build a Characterization Model to classify watersheds based on their natural features and observed stressors.
- Using linear ordering and echelon analysis, the researchers will build a Prioritization Model to classify basins according to disturbance, susceptibility to impairment, and feasibility of restoration, where the last includes technical and economic measures. Both the Characterization and Prioritization models will be validated with in-stream and terrestrial biotic data sets (e.g., IBIs).
- Researchers will compare the results of the taxonomies of watershed types and priorities to the findings of other classifications.
Through this research project the following will be produced:
- Synoptic GIS coverages of environmental data for the Mid-Atlantic Highlands,
- A model graphical and statistical process for classifying watersheds by their features and restoration priorities,
- A taxonomy of Mid-Atlantic watersheds, and
- A set of monitoring and restoration options for each watershed class that can assist managers in the development and implementation of TMDL plans.