Benthic Invertebrate Communities and Their Responses to Selected Environmental
Factors in the Kanawha River Basin, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina
Water-Resources Investigations Report 01-4021
By Douglas B. Chambers and Terence Messinger
National Water-Quality
Assessment Program
A pdf of this file is available.
Abstract
The effects of selected environmental factors on the composition
and structure of benthic invertebrate communities in the Kanawha River Basin
of West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina were investigated in 1997 and
1998. Environmental factors investigated include physiography, land-use pattern,
streamwater chemistry, streambed- sediment chemistry, and habitat characteristics.
Land-use patterns investigated include coal mining, agriculture, and low intensity
rural-residential patterns, at four main stem and seven tributary sites throughout
the basin. Of the 37 sites sampled, basin size and physiography most strongly
affected benthic invertebrate-community structure.
Land-use practices also affected invertebrate community structure
in these basins. The basins that differed most from the minimally affected reference
condition were those basins in which coal mining was the dominant nonforest
land use, as determined by comparing invertebrate- community metric values among
sites. Basins in which agriculture was important were more similar to the reference
condition.
The effect of coal mining upon benthic invertebrate communities
was further studied at 29 sites and the relations among invertebrate communities
and the selected environmental factors of land use, streamwater chemistry, streambed-
sediment chemistry, and habitat characteristics analyzed. Division of coal-mining
synoptic-survey sites based on invertebrate-community composition resulted in
two groups—one with more than an average production of 9,000 tons of coal
per square mile per year since 1980, and one with lesser or no recent coal production.
The group with significant recent coal production showed higher levels of community
impairment than the group with little or no recent coal production. Median particle
size of streambed sediment, and specific conductance and sulfate concentration
of streamwater were most strongly correlated with effects on invertebrate communities.
These characteristics were related to mining intensity, as measured by thousands
of tons of coal produced per square mile of drainage area.
Contents
Abstract
Introduction
Description of the Kanawha River Basin
Purpose and Scope
Acknowledgments
Study Design .
Fixed-Site Network Design and Sampling
Coal-Mining Synoptic Survey Design and Sampling
Invertebrate Sample Analysis
Land-Use Data
Seasonal Variability in the Data Set
Benthic Invertebrate Communities
Comparison of Samples Collected as Part of the Fixed-Site Network
Comparison of Communities in Kanawha River Coal-Mining Region
Effects of Selected Environmental Factors
Environmental Influences upon Communities at Fixed Sites
Environmental Influences upon Communities in the Coal-Mining
Region
of the Kanawha River Basin
Similarities among Benthic Invertebrate Communities in the
Coal-Mining Region of the Kanawha River Basin
Comparison of Benthic Invertebrate Group Attributes in the
Coal-Mining Region
of the Kanawha River Basin
Environmental Gradients Affecting Benthic Invertebrate Communities
in the
Coal-Mining Region of the Kanawha River Basin
Summary and Conclusions
References Cited
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For additional information write to:
District Chief
U.S. Geological Survey
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Charleston, WV 25301
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