 Assigning aquatic life use designations  Determining causes and sources of impairment  Restorability (antidegradation, priority setting, TMDLs)  401 – What is the appropriate aquatic life use?  401 – Will activity cause aquatic life use impairment?

 List of factors associated with higher IBIs ◦ Warmwater Habitat Attributes  List of factors associated with lower IBIs ◦ Modified Habitat Attributes  Key for Use Attainability Analyses is to determine if: ◦ Physical habitat features limiting to aquatic life ◦ Are these habitat features feasibly restorable

 No channel mod./recovered  Boulder, cobble, gravel substrates  Silt free, silt normal  Good/Excellent development  Mod./high sinuosity  Extensive/moderate cover  Fast current, eddies  Low/normal embeddedness  Max depths > 40 cm  Recent/recovering from modifications  Silt/muck substrates  Heavy/moderate silt  Fair/poor development  Low/no sinuosity  Only 1-2 cover types  No fast current  High embeddedness  Max depths < 40 cm  Intermittent/interstitial flow

Warmwater Lotic Systems Headwater Streams (1-20 mi 2 ) Wadeable Streams ( mi2) Large Rivers (> mi 2 ) Great Rivers (>6000 mi 2 ) Primary HW Streams (<1-3 mi 2 ) Class A Class B Class C EWH WWH MWH LRW USH EWH WWH MWH LRW USH EWH WWH MWH LRW Shoreline Habitat Types (A,B,C) Modified Habitat 2 Types: -Channel mod. --Non acidic MD 2 Types: -Drainage maint. -AMD 2 Types: -Channel mod. --Non acidic MD 3 Types: -Impounded -Channel mod. --Non acidic MD 2 Types: -Drainage maint. -AMD 1 Type: -Other (case specific) OHIO SPECIFIC TEMPLATE FOR STRATIFICATION Class B Modified Adopted in WQS Assessment Tool ORSANCO

 Streams are open ecosystems, scale of impact is important  Scale influences both fish and macroinvertebrate communities  Need to take scale into account when doing use designations: ◦ Local reach limitations may be overcome in high quality watershed ◦ Local reach limitations may be more limiting in poor quality watershed (physical)

Extirpation of Sensitive Fish Species

 Precision of tools is important because it provides confidence in identifying impaired waters or high quality waters (confidence in IBI, ICI, etc)  How many classes of waters can we identify?  Precision is important in dependent and independent variables

 Stream habitat types or “niches” generally increase with stream size and flow; withdrawal of flow could limit the amount of habitat  Fish are adapted through morphology and behavior to specific habitat types ◦ Bottom, mid-water, top-water ◦ Slow, moderate, fast, swift flow ◦ Soft, fines, gravels, cobbles, boulders ◦ Structures such as undercuts, aquatic plants, rootwads, oxbows, etc. Redside Dace, Top Striped Shiner, Midwater Variegate Darter, Bottom

How We Calculated “Habitat Niches” Using QHEI Habitat Index