Middle Yampa Segment – Macrohabitat Score 2022
Ecological Health & Function
CATEGORY: Structural Complexity
Macrohabitat Indicator
The macrohabitat indicator considers physical habitat relevant to fish and larger animals, including distribution and diversity of water depth, velocity, and physical cover; shape of bed and bank features; and other large physical structure provided by rock, wood, vegetation, etc. Macrohabitat includes cobble/sandbars; undercut banks; presence/absence of secondary channels/backwaters; and presence, extent, and quality of large wood.
Want to get involved?
Much of the data collected to support assessments of river health for this project is completed during a 2-week summer field course offered in partnership with Colorado Mountain College. Visit here to learn more about the 2024 summer course (SUS-2075-SB01).
Macrohabitat score by Segment
Middle Yampa Segment
Steamboat
Segment
Upper Yampa Segment
Score coming 2025
Elk River
Segment
Score coming 2026
Lower Yampa
Segment
Score coming 2027
Did You Know?
Three intertwined physical processes are involved in maintaining a healthy Yampa River.
The first and best understood process is a relatively natural snowmelt driven flow regime. The second is sediment transport — the rocks, sand, and gravel that provide the physical underpinnings of aquatic and riparian habitat. The third, and least understood, is the wood regime (recruitment, transport, and storage of large wood).
Healthy rivers are messy. Humans have been removing large wood from river corridors for so long, and for so many reasons, that few of us now understand the importance of wood to a healthy river.
The physical interactions among wood, water, and sediment provide flood water attenuation, habitat abundance and diversity, nutrient capture and storage, water quality, biological productivity, and ecological resilience in the face of climate-driven stressors.