Status and Trends of Estuarine Fish Habitats

Estuaries provide habitat functions to a wide variety of species and are critically important to commercial and recreational fisheries. To effectively conserve these areas, resource managers need to understand how human activities impact estuarine habitats and the fish species that depend on them. We present the results of two assessments to measure fish habitat stressors. First, we used data on anthropogenic disturbance to develop a risk-based quantitative assessment of habitat stressors across estuaries in the contiguous United States. We combined data using a multi-scale hierarchical geospatial framework to provide a composite stressor index for estuaries, and discuss regional patterns and identify key stressors. Next, we developed a regional assessment approach that uses the fish abundance as indicators reflecting the condition of estuary habitats and applied this approach to estuaries in the northern Gulf of Mexico. For the regional assessment, we applied screening tools to rapidly assess species and community indicators and identify those most responsive to environmental stressors. We then used this subset of indicators to model individual and multi-species responses to stress gradients and map inter-estuary biological condition. The results of both assessments provide important information to decision makers to help prioritize areas most in need of conservation action.