Biological Community Monitoring

USGS Station ID: 03321500

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservations Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have focused part of the National Water Quality Initiative (NWQI) on the School Branch watershed. The USGS is collaborating, through a Clean Water Act Section 319 grant, with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to accomplish NWQI nonpoint-source water-pollution...

Adult bighead, silver, and hybrid carp are invavsive species of fish that spread quickly once they are established in a water body. These carp damage habitat and reduce water-quality for native fish. Invasive carp have been confirmed within the Wabash River basin for at least 15 years. Scientists and natural resource managers are extremely concerned about the carp migrating to the Great Lakes...

Scientists research biology, botany, microbiology, habitat, climate, water quality, and other fields to achieve a comprehensive view of ecosystems and their health. Ecosystems can be easily stressed by human activities, climate change, sediment, nutrients, contaminants, and many other variables. Ecosystem monitoring is critical to ecosystem health and answers important questions about the...

Eutrophication, or excess nutrients in streams, is typically one of the top reasons that a stream is listed as impaired on the 303(d) list as part of the Clean Water Act.

The Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Water Science Center Algal Biomass Laboratory processes samples for chlorophyll-a and nutrients. The analytical data for chlorophyll-a and pheophytin provided by USGS [periphyton samples collected by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM)] are used by IDEM for water quality assessment and nutrient management planning.

Davis Branch, a stream within the boundaries of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, is a designated Warm Water Aquatic Habitat, Primary Contact Recreation, and Outstanding State Resource Water. Historically, the stream has provided a critical habitat to the federally-threatened Blackside Dace, a small cyprinid fish endemic to the upper Cumberland River basin. In recent decades, the...