While this assessment has found that much of the stream habitat in this region is at low or very low risk of degradation, some key fish habitat disturbances, including water withdrawals or diversions and intensity of livestock grazing in watersheds, could not be directly included in this assessment because national datasets of these disturbances and their supporting variables are unavailable. These disturbances are known to have major, negative effects on fish habitats in this region. Their absence from this assessment, along with absences of other disturbances, has likely produced an overestimation of habitat condition (quality) for some water bodies. Despite such absences, impairment to fish habitats was determined from conservative [...]
