Ohio River Basin Aquatic Habitat Assessment Using Landscape-Scale Predictor Variables

The Ohio River Basin Fish Habitat Partnership (ORBFHP) coalesced from a meeting of approximately 50 federal, state, NGO, and academic representatives interested in improving fish and mussel habitat in the Ohio River Basin.  In 2009, the partnership earned recognition by the board of the National Fish Habitat Action Plan as an official working unit of the plan.  Early on, we recognized the need to strategically identify focal areas throughout the basin in which to target habitat improvement projects.  The need for this data-driven basin wide assessment was two-fold.  It was expected to both provide baseline data to monitor restoration successes as well as to reveal intact areas to serve as priority protection and restoration areas.  The mechanism to meet the assessment goals emerged early in 2010 when ORBFHP joined forces with four other Midwestern fish habitat partnerships (FHPs) to obtain a grant from the Midwest Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.  This grant enabled the FHPs to form a Science Advisory Network (SAN) which coordinated with an outside contractor to streamline the habitat assessment efforts of the individual FHPs.  Downstream Strategies was hired to work with the SAN to build the framework of the assessment mechanism, which integrated a geographical information system (GIS) with statistical analyses of landscape-scale predictor variables to estimate conditions of aquatic response variables developed by each FHP.  Once natural and anthropogenic predictor variables were compiled, boosted regression tree analyses were performed to determine relationships and statistical thresholds for individual response variables.  The ORBFHP, in conjunction with the Southeastern Aquatic Resources Partnership (SARP), developed seven response variables, each of which was run as a separate model to assess conditions in the entire Ohio River basin.  After much discussion and trial and error, the seven models chosen were: Small Streams Signature Fish Index; Modified Index of Centers of Diversity for Fish; Presence/Absence (P/A) of Great River Fish Species; P/A of Three Redhorse Species; P/A of Smallmouth Bass; Percent Intolerant Fish Species; and P/A of Intolerant Mussel Species.  Two databases were built using recent data from various sources, one compiling mussel observations, and the other compiling fish community information.  Draft versions of the models were presented to ORBFHP and SARP for review and tweaking of response variables.  Currently, final reports of all seven models are being developed.  Map books of the results for each model within each 8 digit hydrologic unit code in the basin are available at: ftp://uswfsout:Oj1F8!!@downstreamstrategies.com/ORB_SARP/mapbooks/