National Fish Habitat Action Plan (NFHAP) Habitat Condition Indices [ds733]

These data were collected for multiple purposes. First, they were gathered in support of conducting a condition assessment of fluvial waterbodies throughout the United States 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 available characterizing river systems over larger regions. This work was supported by local, state, and federal partners of NFHAP, including 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 the watersheds affect a given unit of habitat which in turn would affect fishes. It was necessary to use a landscape approach because landscape data are available for every location in of the United States whereas local measures of habitat or biological indicators of habitat condition are only available at a very small percentage of locations around the country.