Aquatic Habitat Appraisal Guide

Abstract: Habitat is now the basis of most impact assessments and resource inventories, and it is the basis of many species management plans, mitigation planning, and environmental regulation. Habitats are relatively stable through time, easily defined in intuitive physical terms, and provide a tangible resource for negotiations and decision making. Numerous and varied methods of analyzing and reporting habitat conditions have been developed by federal, state, provincial, and private agencies. Habitat assessment approaches vary greatly among regions of the continent. The great variability in methods and an unusually wide range of practices have impeded the ability of agencies to share and synthesize information. A diversity of methods is desirable in the initial stages of a rapidly developing field, but enough time has passed to assess the state-of-knowledge and identify the best of the currently used methods and techniques. This manual is intended to provide fisheries biologists with a limited set of techniques for obtaining aquatic habitat data. The manual also describes the range of information collected and used in agency habitat analyses. Agencies planning habitat programs should review the synthesis of established and documented methods being used in North America (Appendix 1) and the planning recommendations in Chapter 2. Then, the remaining chapters should be reviewed to determine what types of habitat data should be included in the agency's program.

Selenium is a naturally occurring trace element that can become concentrated and released by industrial, agricultural, petrochemical and mining activities. At concentrated levels it is toxic and has polluted ecosystems around the world. This book will serve as a comprehensive practical handbook for everyone dealing with selenium in aquatic environments. It offers field-tested approaches and methods for assessment and water quality management. Using his twenty-year experience, the author discusses the effects of selenium on fish and bird populations and presents guidelines for identifying sources of pollution, interpreting selenium concentrations, assessing hazardous conditions, setting water quality criteria and ecosystem loading limits (TMDLs). He also includes a procedure for setting environmentally safe limits that ensure compliance with EPA regulations. Selenium Assessment in Aquatic Ecosystems will interest field scientists, natural resource managers, risk assessors and environmental planners.

The survey procedures which are outlined in this manual aredesigned to acquire basic knowledge of the chemical, physical andbiological conditions of the lakes and streams in Ontario. Themanual has been written to standardize the many methods andtechniques which have been devised over the past several decades. Lakes and streams are dealt with separately. Identification, location definition, mapping, chemical and physical parameters, sampling, documentation and preservation of fish andinvertebrates, and completion of reports are covered.