Improving Opportunities for Conserving Streams through National Data Layers and a Common Spatial Framework: Advances in Large-Scale Ecological Investigations of Aquatic Systems

Growing availability of nationally-consistent ecological datasets supports efforts to characterize influences on and limits to aquatic systems and the organisms they support over spatial extents that were previously inaccessible to researchers and managers.  Examples of such data include information commonly used in studies of aquatic systems like land use/cover, as well as new data characterizing acknowledged disturbances to aquatic systems like river fragmentation metrics and estimates of water withdrawals from watersheds.  A second advancement facilitating use of such data in large-scale investigations includes data attribution to a common spatial framework, with spatial units comprising the framework including catchments.  This presentation highlights two national efforts benefiting from these advancements:  an assessment of fluvial fish habitats and an effort to model fish species distributions to identify conservation opportunities nationally.  Both projects extend across the conterminous United States, and besides describing data used in these efforts, we highlight elements of the projects’ analytical strategies to share lessons learned in conducting nationally-consistent ecological investigations of aquatic systems.  Spatially-explicit results of these projects are also displayed to emphasize the utility of such work for improving opportunities for conservation of stream habitats and the fisheries they support nationally.