1. How do hydrologic, physical habitat, chemical and biological characteristics (algae, invertebrates, fish) of streams respond to land-use changes associated with increasing urban intensity?
2. How do these responses vary across the range of environmental settings found across the United States?
3. What are the most important factors that reduce the quality or number of the fish in our urban streams? Is there “safe” amount of urbanization in which the stream is not affected? Can we develop our land in such a way that minimizes or does not harm the stream whatsoever? These are some of the questions we are trying to answer with our Study.

• Western Lake Michigan drainage NAWQA was one of 6 Study Units chosen to be part of the national study on the effects of urbanization during the first round of NAWQA Cycle II.
• Reasons for the selection of WMIC
• USA Today rated Appleton as having one of the highest urban sprawl indexes in the U.S. for cities less than 250,000 in population
• The Chicago/Milwaukee/Madison triangle was noted by the USEPA as losing farm ground to urban sprawl faster than any other location in the country.
• A large number of Study Unit staff participated in a pilot study in the Chicago Metropolitan area during Cycle I NAWQA pilots.

Urbanization Issues in the WMIC Study Unit Increases of peak flow, changes in peak durations and flood volumes, loss of baseflow, and reduced groundwater recharge. Loss of aquatic habitat and degredation of biological integrity. Accelerated erosion, channel instability, and deposition of potentially contaminated sediments. Increases in contaminate concentrations (metals, nutrients, organics) in water, sediment and biota.
WMIC Study Unit Design
Thirty sites were chosen with drainages areas between 4 and 40 square miles. Two major area types were chosen that were relatively consistent in surfical deposits, bedrock and land-use in the Milwaukee, Racine/Kenosha, Green Bay, and Fox Valley metropolitan areas. RHU 9 — clayey surficial deposits, gravel and sand substrate, carbonaceous bedrock and urban land use. RHU 1 — clayey surficial deposits, gravel and sandsubstrates, carbonaceous bedrock and agricultural land use. For a description of RHU's, see Robertson and Saad, 1995. The land use gradient for the WMIC EUSE Study went from agriculture to urban as opposed to a change from woodland to urban.

How we conducted the Study? GIS Identified similarly sized basins in the Study Unit (basin delineation). Assemble basin characterization (land use, socioeconomic variables, populations, etc) information. Calculate urban intensity index (UII) to rank sites along the land-use gradient. The UII is based on socioeconomic and landscape variables. Reduce natural variability. Field recon sites. Recalculate information on basin characterictics based on sampling locations. Select final sites that are distributed on the agriculture to urban land use gradient in the following order: 0-19% urban 7 sites 20-39% 9 sites 40 - 59% 5 sites 60 - 79% 5 sites 80 - 100% 4 sites

• Install pressure transducers at all sites without USGS gaging stations and leave in for one year.
• Cross-sectional survey at pressure transducer location.
• Begin water quality sampling: Ten sites, representing the entire gradient were were sampled bi-monthly for nutrients, chloride, sulfate, carbon, and a mix of urban and agricultural use pesticides. The remaining 20 sites will be sampled twice (same analytes), once in the spring and again during ecological sampling during August/September 2004.
• Pressure transducers were serviced monthly and discharge measurements taken at the sites to help establish a stage/discharge relationship.
• Fish community sampling was conducted at all 30 sites.
• Semi-Permeable Membrane Devices (SPMD's) were installed at all 30 sites one month prior to ecological sampling. SPMD's were used to bio-accumulate lipophilic environmental contaminants, specifically PAHs, pesticides, organic compounds and other hydrophobic-organic contaminants.
• Reaches were established and marked for the ecological assessment.
• Ecological assessment and water quality sampling August/September 2004 included.
• Water chemistry sampling at all 30 sites.
• Invertebrate community sampling.
• Algal community sampling.
• Habitat assessment at 11 locations in the stream reach, which includes: stream slope, bank height and slope, imbeddedness, stream substrate, wetted width, bankfull width, canopy cover, bank vegetation cover, erosion, presence/absence and identify geomorphic features.
• Remove pressure transducers at sites and survey the following cross sections for HEC/RAS modeling: Bridge opening and closing, upstream and downstream of bridge (2 times bridge width), top and bottom transects of the ecological reach.
• Data analysis will begin in late 2005 and 2006 and a web based report will be finished by the end of the 2006 water year.
• Study Unit staff are involved with national reports, these reports will look at data collected and compiled for all 6 Study Unit Studies; ACFB NAWQA, Atlanta, GA., ALBE NAWQA, Raleigh, N.C., TRIN NAWQA, Austin, TX, SPLT NAWQA, Denver, CO, WILL NAWQA, Portland, OR, and WMIC NAWQA, Wisconsin.

Table 1.  Sites near Milwaukee and Green Bay sampled in association with the EUSE Study. 
Primary sites were sampled for all constituents, secondary sites were sampled (on a limited basis) for water quality and flow.

The Solutions

It is our intention to also provide information that will lead to future solutions. For example, we will determine if wooded or grass buffers can improve the urban stream conditions (and to what degree) - information that may affect future development approaches. Alternately if we determine that the high PAH streams have a preponderance of parking lots in their watershed, engineers and developers may utilize treatment systems designed specifically for parking lots. Within our Study area, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District has installed such a device. A description of urban management practices utilized in the Milwaukee area (part of the Western Lake Michigan Drainage Study) can be found at http://www.forester.net/sw_0403_beyond.html.

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