Effects of Reservoir Operations on Individual Species and Communities: A Watershed Perspective

摘要

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manages natural resources in more than 2,000 watersheds in the United States (Juhle 1997). These include approximately 460 water resource development projects (primarily reservoirs) where nearly 12 million acres of land and water are owned in public trust. Corps reservoirs and their associated aquatic and riparian habitats represent important systems that may influence natural resources both within and outside of a project's boundaries. Water-level manipulation and other operations at these projects have potential adverse impacts to various ecosystems and their associated plant and animal species. Recently, Corps Districts, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and state regulatory agencies have reported impacts to certain threatened, endangered, and otherwise protected species resulting from project operations (Figure 1). The impact of Corps projects on environmentally sensitive species needs to be evaluated from a watershed perspective and a habitat perspective to provide better guidelines that will lessen impacts and improve watershed conditions.