Project Number: WVA00415
CRIS Number: 0185495
EFFECTS OF AGRICULTURAL AND FORESTRY PRACTICES ON STREAM ECOSYSTEM PROCESSES AND FISH METAPOPULATION DYNAMICS
Investigators: Petty, J. T.
Performing Department: Forestry -- 1240
Start Date: 05/01/2000
Termination Date: 04/30/2005
Reporting period: 01/01/2001 to 12/31/2001
Progress Report:
Activities associated with my Hatch project produced the following results over this past year: 1) I used preliminary data from previous Hatch research to obtain three large grants from other sources. 1. A grant of $174,711 from Allegheny Energy and the Electrical Power Research Institute to study fish community response to watershed restoration efforts in the lower Cheat River. 2. A grant of $99,800 from the US Fish And Wildlife Service to continue research on watershed restoration efforts in the upper Shavers Fork basin. 3. A grant of $199,000 from the US Forest Service to examine the benefits of the Forest Stewardship Program as it relates to forestry related sedimentation issues. 2) I received a highly competitive WVU Faculty Senate grant for a project designed to supplement my Hatch research. The project is examining the effects of natural landscape features on fish community productivity in the Cheat River basin. 3) Based on the results of previous Hatch related research, I submitted three additional proposals to USEPA, the WVWRI, and USGS. Success of those proposals is pending. 4) Graduate students and I have continued to synthesize and further develop a comprehensive GIS database for the Cheat River and the Upper Shavers Fork. This database includes information on land cover, stream discharge, water quality, and fish and insect communities. This database comprises an integral part of the predictive model that is a key objective of my Hatch research. 5) Graduate students and I made 13 presentations of results of Hatch related projects at local, regional, and national meetings. 6) I published one peer-reviewed article on research efforts in the upper Shavers Fork examining the effects of land use on instream morphological features. 7) I was a participant in the submission and successful completion of a Regional Hatch Project S-1004 "Development and Evaluation of TMDL Planning and Assessment Tools and Processes." (WV0420).
Publications: (No publications.)
Impact:
My project will have at least three impacts to the regional economy and environmental science. First, my approach can be used to assess the cumulative effects of multiple human activities on aquatic ecosystem function. Second, information will be used to direct stream restoration efforts in human impacted landscapes throughout the central Appalachian region. Third, results from my project will be used to develop landscape scale models to predict aquatic community response to agricultural and forestry practices in Appalachian watersheds.