The Virginia Natural Heritage Program, in the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), is known for the discovery, identification, protection and monitoring of rare biodiversity in Virginia. This biodiversity consists of rare plant and animal species populations, and exemplary natural communities. To address the identification and protection of aquatic communities, DCR-Natural Heritage manages the Healthy Waters Program, in collaboration with Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ).
Traditional aquatic assessment programs are classified based on water quality standards with a subsequent restoration plan to improve degraded surface waters. While this is a critical activity to provide the Commonwealth with healthy ecosystems, it is equally as important to seek viable opportunities for best management practices to protect streams that are already considered biologically diverse. There is a direct relationship between land cover, key watershed processes and the ecological health of streams. Moreover, the integrity (health) of aquatic ecosystems (streams) is tightly linked to the watersheds of which they are a part. Therefore, the Healthy Waters program operates from a basic understanding: the conservation and protection of healthy waters today is ecologically and economically prudent, and deserves precedence over expending resources in attempt to restore streams after they have been damaged.
Virginia has more than 300 ecologically healthy streams, creeks and rivers and there are more to be identified. Healthy streams are identified by factors that include: high numbers of native species, a broad diversity of species, few or no non-native species, few generalist species that are tolerant of degraded water quality, high numbers of native predators, migratory species whose presence indicates that river or stream systems are not blocked by dams or other impediments, and low incidence of disease or parasites.
The Healthy Waters Program uses high quality archival data, combined with extensive, new data collected by the VCU stream assessment team, to develop a broad suite of georeferenced databases of aquatic resources. These resources include fish and macroinvertebrate communities, as well as instream and riparian habitat data to provide the basis for community level identification and prioritization of critical resources for protection. Streams in Virginia have been identified and ranked as "outstanding," "healthy", "restoration candidate" or "compromised" through a stream ecological integrity assessment known as the Interactive Stream Assessment Resource (INSTAR). Streams identified as "healthy" or "outstanding" are integrated into the Biotics database at DCR-Natural Heritage as Element Occurrences (EOs) and Stream Conservation Units (SCUs). These data products communicate and provide healthy streams data to local land trusts; non-profit conservation organizations; local, state and federal government agencies; and private sector partners to guide efforts to:
Click here for a complete PDF version of "Healthy Waters - A New Ecological Approach to Identifying and Protecting Healthy Waters in Virginia". To order a copy of the publication by mail, contact Todd Janeski, the Program Manager at todd.janeski@dcr.virginia.gov |