The The CBP and DOI are working to improve the health of stream corridors in the Bay watershed because they provide critical habitat for fish and bird populations. The CBP has a goal: by 2010, develop and implement watershed management plans to address protection, conservation, and restoration of stream corridors, riparian forest buffers, and wetlands, for the purpose of improving habitat and water quality.

There is a need to better identify where restoration of streams and associated riparian forest buffers will provide optimal water quality and ecological benefit for fish and bird populations. Also, information is needed to identify areas where future human-population growth and water consumption could decrease availability of water to support health stream ecosystems. The USGS will help meet these information needs by:

• Better defining the water-quality benefits of stream and forest buffer restoration in different landscape settings;
• Further investigating the loss of habitat function causing degradation of health of fish and bird populations in the watershed and near-shore environments;
• Using surface- and ground-water models and forecasts of land-use change to assess future scenarios of habitat and water availability to support the ecological health of streams;
• Synthesizing information to improve environment indicators, ecological assessments, and enhance tools (such as the Resource Lands Assessment) to optimize conservation and restoration activities that provide the greatest ecological benefit.