Stream+Indicators

Indicators of Stream Health and Water Quality

 * = ===Indicator=== ||= ===**Description of Indicator**=== ||= ===**Relevance to Water Quality**=== ||
 * Dissolved oxygen || why is our wiki behaving so poorly? ||  ||
 * Phosphates ||  ||   ||
 * Hardness ||  ||   ||
 * Nitrates/Nitrogen ||  ||   ||
 * Ammonia ||  ||   ||
 * pH ||  ||   ||
 * Water clarity || Obvious feature of the surface water || Low- bad for contact recreation, but doesn't necessarily mean bad for other things like fishing. Any water (clear or not) can have toxic substances. ||
 * Presence and number of coliform bacteria (e.g. E. coli) || Present in digestive track of animals, soil, and plants || Can cause illness for life in the water; causes pathogens ||
 * Stream flow rate || Volume of water moving past a cross section of a stream over a period of time (cubic feet/second) || Defines shape, size, and course of stream. Velocity and flow determine kinds of living organisms and vegetation. ||
 * Number and diversity of benthic macro invertebrates || Animals without backbones that are visible to the unaided eye. ||  ||
 * Terrain around stream || Watershed. Impact will quantify the impact of recreation and exertion development || Provide a tool and methodology for land managers to detect nitrogen thresholds in mountains watersheds and predict stream water nitrate export risk to help guide low impact. ||
 * Land use patterns in watershed || Streams are dynamic systems, which constanlity move and change in their pursuit to reach a quilbrium. || Every stream is a dynamic hydrological system that is continually altered by changing chart of the watershed. ||