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Assessing Ecological Integrity of Ozark Rivers to Determine Suitability for Protective Status

Environmental Management volume 35, pages 799–810 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

Preservation of extraordinary natural resources, protection of water quality, and restoration of impaired waters require a strategy to identify and protect least-disturbed streams and rivers. We applied two objective, quantitative methods to determine stream ecological integrity of headwater reaches of 10 Ozark rivers, 5 with Wild and Scenic River federal protective status. Thirty-four variables representing macroinvertebrate and fish assemblage characteristics, in-stream habitat, riparian vegetation, water quality, and watershed attributes were quantified for each river and analyzed using two multivariate approaches. The first approach, cluster and discriminant analyses, identified two groups of river with only one variable (% forested watershed) reliably distinguishing groups. Our second approach employed ordinal scaling to compare variables for each river to conceptually ideal conditions that were developed as a composite of optimal attributes among the 10 rivers. The composite distance of each river from ideal was then calculated using a unidimensional ranking technique. Two rivers without Wild and Scenic River designation ranked highest relative to ideal (highest ecological integrity), and two others, also without designation, ranked most distant from ideal (lowest ecological integrity). Fish density, number of intolerant fish species, and invertebrate density were influential biotic variables for scaling. Contributing physical variables included riparian forest cover, water nitrate concentration, water turbidity, percentage of forested watershed, percentage of private land ownership, and road density. These methods provide a framework for refinement and application in other regions to facilitate the process of establishing least-disturbed reference conditions and identifying rivers for protection and restoration.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the many colleagues and students who assisted with field data collection for this research, especially D. A. Lichtenberg and C. M. Pevey. R. K. Heth assisted with invertebrate identification, C. M. Pevey identified fishes, M. D. Williamson and A. Gisiger guided GIS analyses, and P. Vendrell facilitated water quality analyses. We are especially grateful to J. E. Dunn and L. K. Duncan for advice and assistance with statistical analyses. Research design and this manuscript were improved by the insight and suggestions of A. V. Brown and P. Vendrell and by constructive interchange with C. Mebane and two anonymous reviewers.

Funding was provided by the Arkansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, which is jointly supported by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, University of Arkansas, US Geological Survey, and Wildlife Management Institute. The North Carolina Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is jointly supported by North Carolina State University, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, U.S Geological Survey, and Wildlife Management Institute.

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  1. Arkansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research UnitDepartment of Biological Sciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, 72701, USA

    Andrea J. Radwell

  2. US Geological SurveyNorth Carolina Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27695, USA

    Thomas J. Kwak

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  1. Andrea J. Radwell
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  2. Thomas J. Kwak
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Correspondence to Andrea J. Radwell.

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Radwell, A.J., Kwak, T.J. Assessing Ecological Integrity of Ozark Rivers to Determine Suitability for Protective Status. Environmental Management 35, 799–810 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-004-0136-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-004-0136-4

Keywords

  • Antidegradation
  • Biotic integrity
  • Ecological integrity
  • Reference conditions
  • River bioassessment
  • Ozarks
  • Wild and Scenic Rivers