Water Assessment Data Lab

Assignment # 5

Land Use• The first thing you notice when field

sampling is the area around your site. What type of land use is going on around it? What condition is it in?

• www.maps.google.com• Which stream do you think is going

to be severely impacted and which will be non- impacted?

The Data Sheets• Data courtesy of Watershed

Assessment Associates

Physical Characteristics• Width, Depth, Current- affect who

lives there• Substrate- particle size of the stream

bottom• Embeddedness- How deeply the

rocks are pushed into the stream bed

Chemical Measurements• Temp• Conductance- Indicates salts and

ions• DO and %DO-• pH• Salinity

Biological Attributes• Canopy• Aquatic Vegetation• Macroinvertebrates • Faunal conditions• Observations- What other things

might you want to note from your sample site?

Invert counts• This is what we are going to do for the

final lab!• Genera Richness- Why would this be

important?• EPT- Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and

Trichoptera (who are highly sensitive to pollution)EPT= {(E+P+T)/ Total bugs}*100%

EPT= {(E+P+T)/ Total bugs}*100%

{(11+0+78)/100}*100%= 79%

SENSITIVE__B__ Caddisflies (except net spinners)__A__ Mayflies_____ Stoneflies_____ Water snipe flies__A__ Riffle beetles__A__ Water pennies_____ Gilled snails

LESS SENSITIVE_____ Dobsonflies_____ Fishflies_____ Common

net spinningCaddisflies

_____ Crane flies_____ Damselflies_____ Dragonflies_____ Alderflies_____ Crayfish_____ Scuds_____ sowbugs_____ Clams_____ Mussels

TOLERANT_____ Aquatic worms_____ Black flies__A__ Midge flies_____ Leeches_____ Lunged snails

__4__ # of letters multiplied by 3 =__12___

____ # of letters multiplied by 2 =_____

__1__ # of letters multiplied by 1 =__1___

Now add the three totals from each column for your stream’s index value. Total index value = ____13______

Water Quality Rating_____ Excellent ( > 22) _____ Good (17-22) __X___ Fair (11-16) _____ Poor ( < 11)

Use letter codes (A = 1-9, B = 10-99,C = 100 or more) to record the numbers of organisms.

How's the water?• Put it all together! • Do you think this stream is Severely

impacted, somewhat impacted or non-impacted?

• Now try it on your own with the next 2 and use the questions to walk you through the analysis.