Hierarchical Framework for Wadeable Stream Management and Conservation: Annual Report 2013

We have consolidated and mapped biological information associated with existing criteria for INAI listing of wadeable streams. Threatened and Endangered species locations, fish Index of Biotic Integrity and Mussel Community Index values, and Mussel Species Richness from recent statewide surveys that meet existing criteria for INAI listing have been consolidated and mapped. Additional efforts were made toward developing standard methods for classifying and rating INAI Category I and Category VI sites.Work on this project continued with one full time research scientist and one part-time research scientist during the reporting period. We hired and added a second full time staff member nearthe end of the reporting period to focus on completion of Jobs 2 and 3.Our part-time graduate student worker completed georeferencing and quality assurance of Illinois EPT collections data that is now available for our use.Efforts to define AES polygons uncovered two unexpected but related issues with our existing GIS database system. A large number of very small areas (often < 1 meter wide but sometimes miles long) within the state had not been incorporated into the system. Secondly, some watershed polygons were found to have been misattributed to adjacent watersheds. These areas were generally at the boundaries of the processing units that were used in the initial database development. Identifying, incorporating, and attributing these areas has taken considerable time and delayed work on defining AESs (Job 3)Illinois Department of Natural Resources State Wildlife Grant Program (Project Number T-75-R-001)unpublishednot peer reviewedOpe