Marshall University Marshall Digital Scholar Theses, Dissertations and Capstones 1-1-2009 Developing a Monitoring Protocol for the Monkey River Watershed, Belize, Central America Sean Elliott olC lins [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://mds.marshall.edu/etd Part of the Marine Biology Commons Recommended Citation Collins, Sean Elliott, "Developing a Monitoring Protocol for the Monkey River Watershed, Belize, Central America" (2009). Theses, Dissertations and Capstones. Paper 349. This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Marshall Digital Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses, Dissertations and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Marshall Digital Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DEVELOPING A MONITORING PROTOCOL FOR THE MONKEY RIVER WATERSHED, BELIZE, CENTRAL AMERICA A Thesis submitted to the Graduate College of Marshall University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Biological Sciences: Watershed Resource Sciences by Sean Elliott Collins Approved by Dr. Thomas G. Jones, Ph.D., Committee Chairperson Dr. Frank S. Gilliam, Ph.D., Committee Member Dr. John J. Enz, Ph.D., Committee Member Marshall University December 2009 Acknowledgements This thesis was funded in part by the Marshall University Graduate College through their summer thesis research grant. Dr. Tom Jones used part of his start-up monies for further funding. Other institutions played key roles in the completion of the project. The Belize Foundation for Research and Environmental Education was my home in the jungle for the many weeks of field sampling. To all of you at BFREE, many thanks! Jacob and Kelly, Judy and Dan, Tom, Marcelino, Conti, Satranino, Carolina, Salana and Maria… you all were wonderful during my time in Belize. You became like family to me. To Ya‟axche Conservation Trust, thanks for your help getting all the necessary permits in order and for help brainstorming on this project. Thanks also to Toledo Institute for Development and Environment for collaboration and sharing of unpublished reports. I could not have completed this project without the help of Manuel Zuniga from Medina Bank, Belize. Thank you for spending many hours and days with me in the bush. I certainly learned a lot from you, and I hope that you learned something from me, as well. I appreciate not only your hard work in the field but also your company during some rather demanding times. I would also like to express thanks to my lab mates during my time as a graduate student at Marshall. Brian Bridgewater, Tyler Hern, Nathan Hoxie, Paul Hughes, Brad Musser, Casey Swecker, and Emily Vargo all played the role of peer to me during this time. To Matt Kinsey and Sean Reese, my experience at MU would not have been the same without you both. I cannot thank you two enough for everything. To my committee go many thanks for time well-spent in offices learning from you all. I would like to thank Dr. Gilliam for all his help with the final analyses and composition of this thesis. I would also like to thank Dr. John Enz for his help in Belize, especially with macroinvertebrate identification. I just hope that I was not too bothersome during these last few months. I also have to say a special word of thanks to my advisor, Tom Jones. You have given me so many tools for my future. I hope that I can learn to put them all to good use. I would also like to thank my family. My parents and my brother and sister-in-law are incredibly supportive. Last but certainly not least, I have to thank my fiancée. Kelly, you are my better half. This experience was trying for both of us in many ways. I know, though, that what we have ahead of us can only be amazing. ii Table of Contents TITLE PAGE …………………….……………….……….…………….…….………………..… i AKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………………………………. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS …………………………………………………………………………. iii LIST OF FIGURES …………………………………………………………………………. iv LIST OF TABLES ………………………………………………………………………….. v LIST OF SYMBOLS ……………………………………………………………………….. v ABSTRACT ……………………………………………….………………..……………….…….. vi CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………….. 1 CHAPTER II – LAND COVER CLASSIFICATION ………………………………………….. 5 CHAPTER III – STREAM CHARACTERISTICS …………………………………………….. 18 CHAPTER IV – DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ………………………………….…….. 37 APPENDIX A – GIS IMAGES ………………………………………………………….……... 41 APPENDIX B – BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES …………………………….………. 182 LITERATURE CITED……………………………………………………………………….…… 186 CURRICULUM VITAE ………………………………………………………………….………. 193 iii List of Figures Figure 2.1. False color composite (bands 4, 5, 3) of Belize from Landsat ETM+ taken in 2004 .… 11 Figure 2.2. Supervised classification of Belize, Central America. This only depicts continental Belize as the barrier islands were removed from analysis ………………………………………… 12 Figure 2.3. Supervised classification of Monkey River watershed. Behind the clipped image is the false color composite (2004 Landsat ETM+ 4, 5, 3) of the surrounding area. This composite shows the effects of cloud cover (pink) on classification within Monkey River watershed …….… 13 Figure 2.4. Comparison between land cover of continental Belize and Monkey River watershed in southern Belize. Barrier islands and sea were removed from calculations …….……………….. 14 Figure 2.5. Initial dendrogram created using all six land cover types where class 1 = water, 2 = urban, 3 = savannah, 4 = banana agriculture, 5 = citrus agriculture, and 6 = broadleaf forest. Low distance between classes 2 and 4 and between classes 3 and 5 led to the combination of agriculture land cover types into one broad group ………………………………... 15 Figure 2.6. Final dendrogram created using combined agriculture land cover type where 1 = water, 2 = urban, 3 = savannah, 5 = agriculture, and 6 = broadleaf forest. Combination of agriculture types lead to more distance between classes. This resulted in more accurate classification ………. 16 Figure 3.1. Political boundaries of Belize showing Monkey River watershed outlined in blue……. 29 Figure 3.2. Map showing study sites within the Monkey River watershed. Sites sampled are indicated in blue. Sites not sampled are indicated in red ………………….…….…….……..….…. 30 Figure 3.3. US EPA rapid bioassessment protocol worksheet for wadeable streams ………. 31 Figure 3.4. Explanation of inverse distance weighting (IDW) process. A. Map of B08 site showing arbitrary sample locations. Each location received a categorical substrate score. B. Map of B08 site showing interpolated substrate raster created from IDW of collected scores …………………………………………………………………………….. 33 Figure 3.5. Expected local stress intensity score map (Esselman and Buck 2007). Overall scores were a combination of thermal alteration, habitat alteration, flow alteration, contaminants, nutrient loading, and sedimentation scores ………………………………… 34 Figure 3.6. Principle components analysis of log(10) transformed mean values for each variable from each site ………………………………………………………………………………………. 35 iv List of Tables Table 2.1. Comparison between land cover of continental Belize and Monkey River watershed in southern Belize. Barrier islands and sea were removed from calculations ……………….….…. 17 Table 3.1. Comparison of categorical scores from B04 site. If-then logic was applied to test for correlations between categorical scores of various categories …………………………….….…… 36 Table 3.2 Comparison of categorical scores from B07 site. If-then logic was applied to test for correlations between categorical scores of various categories …………………………….….…… 36 List of Symbols BERDS – Biodiversity and Environmental Resource Data System of Belize ELSI – Expected Local Stress Intensity EPA – Environmental Protection Agency ESRI – Environmental Systems Research Institute FWPCA – Federal Water Pollution Control Act GDP – Gross domestic product GIS – Geographic information system Landsat ETM+ – Landsat Enhanced Thermal Mapping Plus LCC – Land cover classification MMMC – Maya Mountain Marine Corridor MSS – Multispectral scanner system PCA – Principle components analysis RBP – Rapid biomonitoring protocol WVSOS – West Virginia Save Our Streams v Abstract Developing a monitoring protocol for the Monkey River watershed, Belize, Central America SEAN E. COLLINS. Dept. of Biological Science, Marshall University, One John Marshall Drive, Huntington, West Virginia 25755. The study of tropical aquatic systems has been limited. Research in developing countries can be challenging due to inadequate resources and cultural variety. Generally, efforts are concentrated on developing and maintaining economic stability rather than ecological sustainability. The aim of this project was to preliminarily develop and utilize a rapid bioassessment protocol (RBP) for the Monkey River watershed in Belize by determining which metrics best described overall stream health. Like biomonitoring protocols already established for temperate systems, a regional tropical aquatic watershed monitoring program should provide information including stream and watershed health. These protocols score systems on a variety of parameters including water chemistry, land use, stream physiognomy, and biological components. Since an understanding of tropical aquatic environments cannot be gained through studying temperate systems, this project was necessary. Human impacts are an important factor in aquatic systems. Changes in land use practices in a watershed can drastically alter stream processes. The RPB used measures of basic water chemistry and stream