The stream channel incision syndrome and water quality

Abstract

Watershed development often triggers channel incision that leads to radical changes in channel morphology. Although morphologic evolution due to channel incision has been documented and modeled by others, ecological effects, particularly water quality effects, are less well understood. Discharge, basic physical parameters, solids, nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), chlorophyll and bacteria were monitored for five years at two sites along a stream in a mixed-cover watershed characterized by rapid incision of the entire channel network. Concurrent data were collected from two sites on a nearby stream draining a watershed of similar size and cultivation intensity, but without widespread incision. Data sets describing physical aquatic habitat and fish fauna of each stream were available from other studies. The second stream was impacted by watershed urbanization, but was not incised, so normal channel–floodplain interaction maintained a buffer zone of floodplain wetlands between the study reach and the urban development upstream. The incised stream had mean channel depth and width that were 1.8 and 3.5 times as large as for the nonincised stream, and was characterized by flashier hydrology. The median rise rate for the incised stream was 6.4 times as great as for the nonincised stream. Correlation analyses showed that hydrologic perturbations were associated with water quality degradation, and the incised stream had levels of turbidity and solids that were two to three times higher than the nonincised, urbanizing stream. Total phosphorus, total Kjeldahl N, and chlorophyll a concentrations were significantly higher in the incised stream, while nitrate was significantly greater in the nonincised, urbanizing stream ( p ≤ 0.02). Physical aquatic habitat and fish populations in the nonincised urbanizing stream were superior, as it supported almost twice as many species and yielded more than four times as much biomass per unit of effort. These results suggest that channel incision is associated with a complex of ecological stressors that includes channel erosion, hydrologic perturbation, and water quality and physical habitat degradation. Ecological engineering of stream corridors must focus at least as much energy on mediating hydrologic perturbations and managing habitat quality as on pollutant loadings.