Linking Hydrologic Alteration to Biological Impairment in Urbanizing Streams of the Puget Lowland, Washington, USA.

ABSTRACT: We used a retrospective approach to identify hydrologic metrics with the greatest potential for ecological relevance for use as resource management tools (i.e., hydrologic indicators) in rapidly urbanizing basins of the Puget Lowland. We proposed four criteria for identifying useful hydrologic indicators: (1) sensitive to urbanization consistent with expected hydrologic response, (2) demonstrate statistically significant trends in urbanizing basins (and not in undeveloped basins), (3) be correlated with measures of biological response to urbanization, and (4) be relatively insensitive to potentially confounding variables like basin area. Data utilized in the analysis included gauged flow and benthic macroinvertebrate data collected at 16 locations in 11 King County stream basins. Fifteen h

SUBMITTER: Degasperi CL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3307621 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature