State: Michigan Project No: 237016 s1

STUDY PROGRESS REPORT

State: Michigan Project No.: T-10-T-3

Study No.: 237016 Title: Refinement of the aquatic portion of Michigan’s Wildlife Action Plan and development of tools to support the plan

Period Covered: October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012

Study Objectives: The goals of this project are to: (1) refine Michigan’s comprehensive aquatic conservation strategy; (2) synthesize progress made during the first phase of plan implementation; and (3) develop improved databases, frameworks, and tools for implementation of Michigan’s Wildlife Action Plan (MWAP). The specific objectives are as follows: Objective 1. Update and maintain Michigan’s river classification framework and databases as well as coordinate the development of Michigan’s inland lake GIS databases and classification framework. Objective 2. Refine Michigan’s ecological drainage units (EDUs) that were developed by The Nature Conservancy. Objective 3. Define aquatic ecological systems (AESs), subwatersheds with distinct characteristics in physicochemical and biological properties. Objective 4. Identify high priority conservation areas for both inland lakes and rivers. Objective 5. Assess environmental conditions of Michigan’s rivers and inland lakes. Objective 6. Identify key environmental threats to each water body. Objective 7. Develop GIS application tools to meet other implementation needs of the MWAP programs. Objective 8. Synthesize progress made in aquatics during the first 5-years of MWAP implementation. Objective 9. Develop and write the aquatic portion of the 10-year conservation strategy refinement report.

Summary: Considerable progress was made in updating and developing the inland lakes database to meet the MWAP needs. The new 10 meter resolution national elevation dataset was acquired and new catchment and buffers were delineated for lakes and streams. Climate, elevation, landuse, landcover, geology, and recreation lands data were summarized for these new catchments and buffers for all lakes and stream reaches in the state. A web-based tool displaying aquatic habitat data was developed for use by Fisheries Division employees on the State of Michigan network. We worked with Fisheries personnel to test and upgrade the web-based tool. This application tool will be critically important for identifying information gaps and providing essential information to protect, enhance, and rehabilitate habitat for species of greatest conservation need (SGCN). Ongoing GIS support was provided to numerous MWAP projects.

Findings: Jobs 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 11 were scheduled for 2011-12, and progress is reported below.

1 T-10-T-3, Study 237016

Job 1. Title: Update and maintain the river database, and coordinate the development of the inland lakes database to meet MWAP needs.–The aquatic habitat database for MWAP, including river and inland lake datasets, has been maintained and upgraded. During the last fiscal year, the 10 meter resolution national elevation dataset (NED) became available for the entire state (previous elevation data was at a 30 meter resolution). These data were downloaded and merged for the state. Due to the availability of higher resolution elevation data, the riparian buffer and catchment zones for the IFRHD dataset were recreated statewide at a 10 meter resolution. The following text describes a number of changes that were incorporated into these new riparian and catchment zone delineations. Large rivers were buffered using the NHD Area features (river polygons), with the final buffer representation excluding the river polygons themselves. These river polygon areas were removed, leaving only the nonriver portion of the buffer (buffer will extends 60 meters out from river polygon edges). In the previous version of the IFRHD buffers, river buffers extended into Great Lake and inland lake polygons by as much as 60 meters. The newly created buffers were cutoff at Great Lakes by incorporating shoreline arcs, while inland lake polygons were used in the buffering process (instead of lake artificial path flow lines only). Buffers did not exist for inland lakes. All connected lakes (lakes that are part of connected river network) and disconnected lakes 5 acres and larger were given a 100 meter buffer zone. This zone excludes the internal lake area, resulting in a 100 meter shoreline buffer. Disconnected lakes less than 5 acres were excluded from the catchment delineation process. In the previous IFRHD spatial framework, very small lake water bodies (some < 0.2 acres) received catchments. Lake polygon areas were removed from lake catchments, resulting in local lake catchments that included only upland areas. Attributes were generated for buffers and catchments at three spatial scales: 1) local scale, which includes the land area immediately adjacent (buffer) or draining to (catchment) a given river reach or lake, 2) incoming scale, which includes all upstream contributing areas only (local scale not included), and 3) network scale, which includes all upstream contributing areas and the local zone of the target river reach/lake polygon. The attribution of lake local/network zones excluded the target lake polygon as described in the catchment delineation process above. The attributes summarized for these zones include CARL land conservation areas, 1961–1990 mean annual growing degree days, 1971–2000 mean annual precicipation, maximum, minimum, and mean annual air temperatures, 1981–2010 mean annual precicipation, maximum, minimum, and mean annual air temperatures (newly acquired), 2001 land cover, imperviousness, and forest canopy cover, 2006 land cover and imperviousness (newly acquired), surficial geology, maximum, minimum, and mean elevation (newly acquired), and landscape slope (newly acquired).

Job 4. Title: Identify high priority conservation areas for both inland lakes and rivers.–A process for identifying high priority conservation areas was developed and reported on during the previous fiscal year.

Job 5. Title: Assess environmental conditions of Michigan rivers and inland lakes.–Assessments of environmental conditions of Michigan’s inland lakes and wadeable streams were completed and reported on during the previous fiscal year.

Job 6. Title: Identify key environmental threats to each water body.–This job was completed and reported on during the previous fiscal year.

Job 7. Title: Develop GIS application tools to meet the other Fisheries Division implementation needs of the MWAP.–A web-based tool displaying aquatic habitat data was developed for use by 10 F-80-R-1, Study 469

Fisheries Division employees on the State of Michigan network. The Aquatic Habitat Viewer or AHV was developed using ArcGIS Server and the web API for Flex. Data layers included in the AHV were species of greatest conservation need, lake deep points, lake fetch, lake contours, cold water habitat stream classification, lake and stream regulations, and catchment percentages of surficial geology type and national land cover type. Base layers included conservation and recreation lands or CARL, national land cover dataset 2006, surficial geology, watersheds, management units, counties, public land survey system, high resolution aerial imagery, streets, and topographic maps. Basic tools were added that allow users to search for features, bookmark locations, and search for addresses. A beta version of the Aquatic Habitat Viewer was distributed to a subset of biologists and managers for testing. The AHV was modified based on the suggestions and issues raised during this initial testing phase. The AHV will be released to all Fisheries Division employees later this fall. This application tool will be critically important for identifying information gaps and providing essential information to protect, enhance, and rehabilitate habitat for species of greatest conservation need (SGCN).

Job 8. Title: Provide GIS support to the MWAP in mapping critical habitats and distributions of species of greatest conservation need. Also provide support to the designation of critical aquatic conservation areas.–GIS support was provided to the MWAP programs when requested. We provided a variety of spatial data including streams, lakes, and watersheds to display fish habitat and evaluate spatial relationships by different programs that deal with species of greatest conservation need (SGCN) issues. We also prepared spatial data for universities, NOAA, The Nature Conservancy, and provided maps in support of fish related issues, including Asian carp, creel survey, and river assessment for the Fisheries Division. These tasks included providing stream datasets, creating maps, and producing analysis results and tables.

Job 11. Title: Prepare annual performance report.–This annual report was prepared as scheduled.

Prepared by: Kevin Wehrly Date: September 30, 2012 3