Southwest Native Fish Habitat and Riparian Condition

In the Southwestern Region of the Forest Service we have a great variety of fish habitat types from high elevation trout habitat to desert ecosystems.  Many of our aquatic species are imperiled due to various stressors namely non-native species and habitat alteration.  The region has lacked a comprehensive regional riparian management strategy for some time.  Multiple listed riparian and fish species have highlighted this issue of late.  Recognizing this shortfall, we have been trying to better understand the relationship between riparian condition and fish habitat and strategizing economical methods to evaluate streams and riparian areas across the region.  While traditional methods for ranking riparian conditions which focus on bank stability and vegetative cover likely have high correlation for stream habitat conditions for our cold water trout species, these methods may not work as well to evaluate habitat for warm water native fish species and desert ecosystems which often thrive on variability and disturbance.   In areas with multiple listed species with very different habitat preferences, we are evaluating how best to evaluate and manage the habitat for the full species assemblage.