Mapping of depositional and non-depositional areas in Salinas, California streams with concurrent pyrethroid and benthic macroinvertebrate assessments

Abstract

This study used sediment mapping to determine the spatial extent of depositional and non-depositional areas in the wetted stream bed of four urban streams in Salinas, California. After the stream mapping was completed, 8 pyrethroids were analytically measured from randomly selected sites in 12 depositional and 12 non-depositional areas in the four Salinas streams. Benthic macroinvertebrate samples were collected and identified from depositional and non-depositional areas where pyrethroids were measured. In addition, physical habitat was also evaluated at each site where benthic communities were collected. Based on a random sampling design, 24 % of the 96 sediment sampling sites in the Salinas streams were classified as predominately depositional areas. Mean total pyrethroid concentrations were approximately 2× to 61× times higher in depositional areas of the Salinas streams when compared to non-depositional areas. Physical habitat scores from the 12 depositional and 12 non-depositional areas in the Salinas stream sites were extremely low compared with other California streams thus demonstrating that impaired physical habitat is a critical stressor in these streams. Approximately 6,300 individual macroinvertebrates were picked and identified from 70 taxa from the 24 Salinas stream sites. The most dominant taxa collected were all considered tolerant of environmental stressors and dominant taxa from both depositional and non-deposition areas were similar. Ten different benthic metrics for the Salinas streams were similar for the depositional areas, where pyrethroid concentrations consistently exceeded laboratory based toxicity thresholds, and non-depositional areas where pyrethroid concentrations were much lower. These results suggest that factors other than pyrethroids are responsible for impacting resident benthic communities in these urban Salinas streams.