Habitat Quality Assessment & Suitability Modeling
Stream Erosion Susceptibility
Stream Corridor Assessment: Barriers, Infrastructure, Point/Non-Point Source Pollution
Understanding the quality and distribution of stream habitat is important to managing stream biota. Traditional stream habitat survey methods are often spatially-limited, time-consuming, expensive, and collect limited amounts of data. Using the HDSS system, 53 continuous miles of the Paint Rock River and its tributaries were surveyed in 3 field days. Each GPS point was assigned an associated bank condition score and habitat type (pool, riffle, run), and was used to develop GIS habitat quality maps. The survey results can be used in four ways; 1) As a tool for monitoring the results of previous restoration activities; 2) a tool to prioritize future restoration efforts and action areas; 3) baseline characterization of river bank conditions in 2014 for future review; and 4) to provide easily shared GIS data for numerous agencies to benefit from.
HDSS results all you to efficiently find and prioritize locations with high streambank erosion and viewing the associated georeferenced video allow you to see instream conditions at the location.