Stony Clove Creek, New York

Status: Completed

Developing a Stream Management Plan for the Stony Clove Watershed

Sponsored by the New York City Dept. of Environmental Protection, the Greene County Soil and Water Conservation District and the New York Water Resources Institute

Our overall goal was to assist in the development of sophisticated grass-roots environmental resource protection programs and to enable local communities to see beyond single issues and consider the total ecological health of their landscape. To accomplish this we used a target fish community-based habitat assessment approach and combined this technique with geomorphological and fish biology studies to develop a stream management plan. This project demonstrated the application of MesoHABSIM as a means of integrating aquatic habitat management, flood protection and water quality protection. In this process of transferring expertise to local governments and state agencies, we provided a knowledge base of instream habitats, whereby ecological goals for the integrated management concept of the given watershed could be established. The New York City DEP has expressed interest in integrating the above methodology with the presently used geomorphic approach to develop a Stream Management Plan for the Stony Clove watershed in Greene and Ulster Counties. MesoHABSIM and the Target Community Approach were incorporated into the habitat assessment work performed by the Greene County Soil and Water Conservation District.

Click below to read the final report:

Fish Habitat Assessment on Stony Clove Creek, NY Using MesoHABSIM

• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Appendix 4
• Appendix 5