Developing a monitoring protocol for the Monkey River watershed, Belize, Central America

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Developing a monitoring protocol for the Monkey
River watershed, Belize, Central America

• Sean E. Collins
• Marshall University Biological Sciences
• Thesis Defense
• 30 November 2009

Photo S. Collins
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About me

• Undergraduate Degree
• Marshall University
• B.S. Biology
• Dr. Thomas K. Pauley, advisor
• Graduate Degree
• Marshall University
• M.S. Biology, Watershed Resource Sciences
• Dr. Thomas G. Jones, advisor

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Outline

• Chapter I Broad Introduction
• Chapter II Land Cover Classification
• Chapter III Stream Characteristics
• Chapter IV Discussion and Conclusions

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Chapter I Introduction

• Why?
• Temperate Limnology ? Tropical Limnology1
• Relationship between land and water in tropics
  unclear2
• Tropical aquatic systems support rich but
  incompletely known biota3
• Conservation constrained by lack of information3

1 - Lewis. 1987. Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics. 18159-184.
2 - Ometo et al. 2000. Freshwater Biology.
44327-337.
3 - Dudgeon. 2000. Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics. 31239-263.
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Dry Season Wet Season
Lewis. 2008. Tropical Stream Ecology. 1-21.
Boulton et al. 2008. Tropical Stream Ecology.
257-284.
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Higher Annual Irrandiance

• More sun every day
• More consistent water temperature
• More consistentair temperature

Lewis. 2008. Tropical Stream Ecology. 1-21.
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Rapid Biomonitoring Protocols (RBP)

• Land Use
• Water Chemistry
• Biological Components
• Stream Characteristics
• Cost-effective assessment technique
• Multiple site investigations during one field
  season

Barbour et al. 1999. EPA 841-B-99-002.
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EPAs Development of RBPs

• Federal Regulations 1970s
• Federal Water Pollution Control Act
• Standards for discharges into waterways
• EPA guidelines for sources of pollution
• Developing RBPs 1980s
• Compilation of monitoring programs
• Cost-effective/time-effective

Barbour et al. 1999. EPA 841-B-99-002.
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Local RBPs

• Local monitoring protocols
• West Virginia Save Our Streams (WVSOS)
• Multiple intensity levels
• Water chemistry
• Physical characterization
• Biological components
• West Virginia Stream Condition Index (WVSCI)
• Rigorous protocol

US EPA. 1997. EPA 841-B-97-003.
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Land Cover Characterization

• Land Use
• Water affected by surrounding land use
• Water chemistry1
• Biological components2

1 - Allan et al. 1997. Freshwater Biology.
37149-161. 2 - Allan and Flecker. 1993.
Bioscience. 3732-43.
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Rapid Biomonitoring Protocols (RBP)

• Land Use
• Water Chemistry
• Biological Components
• Stream Characteristics
• Cost-effective assessment technique
• Multiple site investigations during one field
  season

Barbour et al. 1999. EPA 841-B-99-002.
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Land Cover Characterization

• Land Use
• Water affected by surrounding land use
• Water chemistry1
• Biological components2
• Multiple scales of influence
• Local scale, watershed scale
• Land cover cascade3

1 - Allan et al. 1997. Freshwater Biology.
37149-161. 2 - Allan and Flecker. 1993.
Bioscience. 3732-43.
3 - Burcher et al. 2007. Ecology. 88228-242.
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Land Use
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Why the Monkey River?

• Maya Mountain Marine Corridor (MMMC)
• 1 million acre tract
• Six watersheds
• Connects highlands to Caribbean
• Listed as area with high conservation potential

Belize Center for Environmental Studies. 1990.
Unpublished report. Programme for Belize. 1995.
Unpublished report.
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Objectives

• Define land cover types in Monkey River basin
• Hypothesis Similar to Belize
• Determine which metrics best describe
  health/quality of streams
• Hypothesis pH best predictor
• Determine if human impacts have an effect on
  habitat heterogeneity
• Hypothesis Impacts will negatively affect stream

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Chapter II Land Cover Classification

• What is remote sensing?
• Land use and its affects
• Maximum Likelihood Classification
• Results/Discussion

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Remote Sensing

• All objects emit or reflect radiation
• In various amounts
• In various wavelengths
• Measurement of reflected/emitted light

Roughgarden et al. 1991. Ecology 72 1918-1922
(Adapted from ESRI, 2007)
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Scanning Systems

• Multispectral scanner system
• Variety of wavelengths
• Collect emitted/reflecteddata
• Landsat ETM

http//www.satimagingcorp.com/satellite-sensors/la
ndsat.html
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Multispectral Bands

• Landsat ETM
• Band1 Blue
• Band2 Green
• Band3 Red
• Band4 Near IR
• Band5 Short Wave IR
• Band6 Thermal IR
• Band7 Long Wave IR
• Band8 Panchromatic

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True Color versus False Color

• True Color
• Red, Green, Blue 3, 2, 1

• False Color
• Red, Green, Blue 4, 3, 2

http//landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/education/compositor/
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Spectral Signatures
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Adapted from
http//www5.egi.utah.edu/GIS__CVEEN/Remote_Sensing
/body_remote_sensing.html
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Spectral Signatures
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Adapted from
http//www5.egi.utah.edu/GIS__CVEEN/Remote_Sensing
/body_remote_sensing.html
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Land Cover Cascade

• Aquatic ecosystems affected by land use
• Disturbances in land use cause changes
• Impacts may not be from direct neighbors

Burcher et al. 2007. Ecology 88 228-242.
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Objectives

• Maximum Likelihood Classification
• Define land cover types in Belize
• Define land cover types in Monkey River basin
• Compare land cover

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Biodiversity Environmental Resource Data System
of Belize

• Environmental data warehouse
• Landsat ETM
• Rivers
• Cities/Towns

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Methods Training Sites

• New file created
• Use ground truth data (known)
• Assign representative cover types
• Use these to define unknown areas

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Methods Spectral Signatures

• Multivariate statistics
• Analyze 3 bands of data
• Band, Display
• Band 4, Red
• Band 5, Green
• Band 3, Blue
• Create signature file

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Methods Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC)

• Use spectral signatures
• Assign cover type to unknown areas
• Define entire scene based on signature file

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Results Spectral Signatures
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Results Watershed Comparison
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Conclusion Classification

• ArcMap 9.2 was successful for maximum likelihood
  classification
• Monkey River watershed similar to Belize
• Some problems with cloud cover
• Classified some areas as urban in a
  virgin-timber National Park

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Chapter III Stream Characteristics

• Background Aquatic Ecology
• Study Area Monkey River basin
• Field sampling techniques
• Human impacts versus field data

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Tropical Aquatics

• Temperate Limnology ? Tropical Limnology1
• Relationship between land and water in tropics
  unclear2
• Tropical aquatic systems support rich but
  incompletely known biota3

1 - Lewis. 1987. Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics. 18159-184.
2 - Ometo et al. 2000. Freshwater Biology.
44327-337.
3 - Dudgeon. 2000. Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics. 31239-263.
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Tropical Aquatics (cont.)

• Distinct wet/dry seasons1
• Higher annual irradiance1
• Land use affects biology2 and chemistry3

1 - Lewis. 2008. Tropical Stream Ecology. 1-21. 2
- Allan et al. 1997. Freshwater Biology.
37149-161. 3 - Allan and Flecker. 1993.
Bioscience. 3732-43.
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Rapid Bioassessment Protocols

• Biological assessment an evaluation of the
  condition of a waterbody using biological surveys
  and other direct measurements of the resident
  biota in surface waters
• Cost-effective biological assessment of lotic
  systems
• Multiple site investigations during one field
  season

Barbour et al. 1999. EPA 841-B-99-002.
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Objectives

• Determine which metrics best describe
  health/quality of streams
• Determine if human impacts have an affect on
  habitat heterogeneity

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Study Area

• Monkey River basin within MMMC
• 30 randomly selected sites on 4 rivers
• Some headwaters virgin rainforest
• Some areas commercial agriculture

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Methods

• Basic water chemistry
• Categorical scores for biota
• Kick net sampling for macroinvertebrates
• Depth and velocity measurements
• Modified Wolman pebble count

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Analysis

• Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) of categorical
  scores, depth, velocity
• Comparison of IDWs per site
• Linear regression against human impact scores1
• Principle components analysis (PCA)

1 - Esselman and Buck. 2007. Unpublished report.
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Results

• Temperature increased as human impacts increased
• pH decreased as human impacts increased
• Biotic factors decreased as human impacts
  increased
• Coefficient of variation compared against human
  impacts

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Conclusions

• Novel technique for IDW comparison
• Compare categorical scores
• Shows correlations
• Some characteristics with trends against human
  impact scores
• Must monitor chemistry1 and biology2

1 - Allan et al. 1997. Freshwater Biology.
37149-161. 2 - Karr and Chu. 2000.
Hydrobiologia. 4221-14.
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Conclusions

• Coefficient of variation compared to human impact
  scores
• No trends in variation with regard to impact
• PCA showed pH, specific conductivity, riparian
  zone width, fish were important in describing
  spatial heterogeneity

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Chapter IV Conclusions

• Aquatic ecology studies
• Remotely sensed data
• Field data collection

Photo T. Jones
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Remotely Sensed Data

• Land Cover
• Streams tied to landscape1
• Chemical1and biological2risk from anthropogenic
  impacts

1 - Allan. 2004. Freshwater Biology.
37149-161. 2 - Karr and Chu. 2000.
Hydrobiologia. 4221-14.
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Field Data Collection

• Human Impacts
• Trends in chemical components
• Trends in biological components
• PCA separated sites
• Human impact scores different (p lt 0.01)

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Further Study

• Monitor changes in land cover over time
• Use higher resolution imagery
• Monitor changes in stream ecosystems
• Continuous monitoring

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Acknowledgements

• MU Graduate College
• Belize Foundation for Research and Environmental
  Education
• Toledo Institute for Development and Environment
• Yaaxche Conservation Trust
• Dr. Tom Jones
• Dr. Frank Gilliam
• The Fish Guys

• Dr. James Brumfield
• Dr. John Enz

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Questions?
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