National Fish Habitat Action Plan (NFHAP) 2010 HCI Scores and Human Disturbance Data for Alaska linked to HUC12s for Alaska: ESRI Service Definition
Dates
Publication Date
2011-04
Start Date
2000
End Date
2007
Summary
This service definition contains landscape factors representing potential human disturbances to river systems summarized in 12-digit USGS hydrological units (HUC12s) for the state of Alaska. Variables include land uses, barriers to fish movement, landing strips/airports, mines, point-source pollutant sites, and infrastructure like pipelines, railroads, and roads. The source datasets that were compiled and attributed to HUC12s were identified as being: (1) meaningful for assessing fish habitat; (2) consistent across the entire state of Alaska in the way that they were assembled; (3) representative of conditions from 2000 to 2010; and (4) of sufficient spatial resolution that they could be used to make valid comparisons among HUC-12s. [...]
Summary
This service definition contains landscape factors representing potential human disturbances to river systems summarized in 12-digit USGS hydrological units (HUC12s) for the state of Alaska. Variables include land uses, barriers to fish movement, landing strips/airports, mines, point-source pollutant sites, and infrastructure like pipelines, railroads, and roads. The source datasets that were compiled and attributed to HUC12s were identified as being: (1) meaningful for assessing fish habitat; (2) consistent across the entire state of Alaska in the way that they were assembled; (3) representative of conditions from 2000 to 2010; and (4) of sufficient spatial resolution that they could be used to make valid comparisons among HUC-12s. This service definition also includes seven subindices that carry scores for each watershed that range from zero to one and represent each watershed's degree of disturbance relative to all other watersheds in the study area. Index scores in each HUC-12 were summed together to yield a cumulative disturbance score for each watershed.
Please use the following citation: Esselman, P., D.M. Infante, A. Cooper, D. Wieferich, L. Wang, and W. Taylor. (April 2011) National Fish Habitat Action Plan (NFHAP) 2010 HCI Scores and Human Disturbance Data for Alaska linked to HUC12s for Alaska. National Fish Habitat Partnership Data System. http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.5066/F7KD1VWD
These data were collected for multiple purposes. First, they were gathered in support of conducting a condition assessment of fluvial waterbodies throughout Alaska in support of the National Fish Habitat Action Plan (NFHAP). Second, these data were intended to be made available to NFHAP Partnerships as well as other users interested in acquiring consistently-organized information for characterizing condition of and potential disturbances to river systems over larger regions. This work was supported by local, state, and federal partners of NFHAP, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey. Because the condition assessment was conducted over such a large geographic region, we adopted a landscape approach for assessment which assumed that anthropogenic disturbances as well as natural characteristics in watersheds affect a given unit of fluvial habitat which in turn could affect fishes. It was necessary to use a landscape approach because landscape data are available for every location in Alaska whereas local measures of habitat or biological indicators of habitat condition were only available in a consistent and usable format at a very small percentage of locations throughout the state at the time of this assessment.