The Development of an Stream Water Quality Assessment Index to Evaluate Stream Health Conesus Lake Tributaries Spring 2011

Abstract

The major goal was to develop an assessment tool for watershed health utilizing the USDA data base. Such a tool would allow the county to evaluate the status of watersheds; that is, are they improving, getting worse, or not changing. An evaluation tool of this type would allow further development and direction of the Conesus Lake Watershed Management Plan. Monitoring of two of the USDA streams (Cottonwood Gully and North McMillan Creek) was changed to the spring rather than the summer. This was done as a result of last year’s work which suggested that spring monitoring may provide a better Stream Water Quality Assessment Index watershed status than a summer index. A Stream Water Quality Assessment Index was developed based on spring data that has promise for evaluating trends in the impact of land use on Conesus Lake subwatersheds.