Macroinvertebrate response to land cover, habitat, and water chemistry in a mining-impacted river ecosystem: A GIS watershed analysis

Abstract

This study addressed potential land use impacts to macroinvertebrate communities and water quality from past coal mining activities in the watershed of the North Branch of the Susquehanna River (located in northeastern Pennsylvania and southern New York). Landscape tools of GIS and remote sensing (RS) were used to calculate percent land cover (forest, agriculture, barren, urban, and water) from SPOT imagery (for tributaries) and Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) data (for river sites) on 17 subcatchments in the study area. The study design included fi eld sampling at reach locations at four fi rst-and second-order sites with low urban and low barren (mining) land cover, four similar sized sites with high mining and high barren land cover, fi ve sites with intermediate combinations of urban and barren, and four mainstem river sites (60 % forest and 35 % agriculture). Sites were sampled in early fall for macroinvertebrates (17 parameters, e. g., EPT richness, percent fi lterers), benthic substrates (including deposits from mine waters), and 10 water chemistry parameters. A principal component analysis (PCA) on the macroinvertebrate parameters provided plot-clustering of subcatchments based generally on the above study design groupings; river sites clustered closer to smaller streams with low mining and urban land cover. Correlations identifi ed six macroinvertebrate parameters (e. g., EPT richness, collector-gatherers) best associated with the three major axes of the PCA; each of these six indicators was analyzed in step-wise multiple regressions as dependent variables against land cover, benthic substrate, and water chemistry parameters. The strongest regressions were for percent barren land cover that explained the greatest amount of variation in both EPT richness and taxa richness. This mining affect was confi rmed with dissolved iron and sulfate concentrations and levels of sedimentation and iron deposition explaining variability across several macroinvertebrate parameters. Comparison to the published literature on mining impacts indicated advantages to using a GIS watershed approach in multivariate analyses of stream ecosystem response. Also, this appears to be the fi rst GIS watershed assessment of mining land use affects since most published studies of land use impacts to watersheds and lotic ecosystems have focused on either agriculture or urbanization.

Quantifying the effect of catchment land use and water nutrient concentrations on freshwater river and stream biodiversity

“…Upper and lower confidence levels (95%) are depicted in dashed lines. Data are based on studies by Harding et al, 1998;Euliss and Mushet, 1999;Hall et al, 2001;Sponseller et al, 2001;Bojsen and Jacobsen, 2003;Collier and Quinn, 2003;Harding, 2003;and Bruns, 2005. Linear regression between the percentage of non-natural cover in the catchment and EPT taxon diversity in streams.…”

“…Upper and lower confidence levels (95%) are depicted in dashed lines. Data are based on studies by Harding et al, 1998;Sponseller et al, 2001;Collier and Quinn, 2003;Harding, 2003;and Bruns, 2005. This study shows that altered catchment land use can have a major effect on freshwater taxon diversity and that the rate of species loss is serious; from the literature reviewed, every 10% of lost natural catchment land cover led to an average loss of almost 6% ( AE 0.83) of the native freshwater fish and macroinvertebrate species. Quantifying relationships makes it possible to emphasize to policy makers the consequences of continued habitat alteration and eutrophication, and to visualize the costs of these actions in terms of taxon diversity loss.…”

“…Note that the line of the EPT overlays the upper confidence level of the combined macroinvertebrate, fish and EPT regression line. Data are based on studies by Roth et al, 1996;Harding et al, 1998;Euliss and Mushet, 1999;Hall et al, 2001;Marchetti and Moyle, 2001;Sponseller et al, 2001;Bojsen and Jacobsen, 2003;Collier and Quinn, 2003;Harding, 2003;Joy and Death, 2004;Bruns, 2005;and Schweizer and Matlack, 2005. …”

“…Only in eight articles were data presented in a way that made further analysis possible (Cao et al, 1996;Kay et al, 1999;Hall et al, 2001;Marchetti and Moyle, 2001;Sponseller et al, 2001;Bojsen and Jacobsen, 2003;Camargo et al, 2003 andBruns, 2005), but studying these resulted in only a few data points. Because some articles dealt with macroinvertebrate families and others covered genera or species, it was not possible to combine these studies.…”

A GIS and statistical approach to identify variables that control water quality in hydrothermally altered and mineralized watersheds, Silverton, Colorado, USA

“…Their work identifies inverse correlations between area of hydrothermal alteration and macro benthic taxa type and abundance. An approach similar to that of Schmidt et al (2009) was used by Bruns (2005), who developed a GIS and statistical analysis methodology of watersheds to understand stream ecosystem response to potential land use impacts caused by coal mining in northeastern Pennsylvania and southern New York.…”