Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Grading Our Streams

Ozarks Water Watch's newsletter this week features an article, How's The Water?, that shows the grades of our streams draining into the White River system.  Just like school there are some bright spots and some failures.

One of the most asked questions at local water meetings is "what happens to our stream team data?"  This is frustrating to many who diligently wade the streams and kick gravel into nets to capture the macroinvertebrates to be counted but never get to see the big picture.

Click to Enlarge


Past reports have been based on data from MSU, University of Arkansas,  and the US Geological Survey.  Ozarks Water Watch is going to be incorporating more data from the extensive stream team network in the future.

The scorecard to the left is just an overview of the data.  Click on it to see how your favorite stream rates.  There are several detailed papers describing the process and results which are available through links in the How's The Water? article.

If you haven't had a chance to kick gravel and count critters, now would be a good time to visit the Missouri Stream Team web page and see how you can get involved.  There is a nearby stream awaiting your visit.