An integrated ecological modeling system for assessing impacts of multiple stressors on stream and riverine ecosystem services within river basins

What is it about?

The Integrated Ecological Modeling System (IEMS) forecasts water quality and quantity, habitat suitability for fish, fish biomasses, population densities, productivities, and contamination by methylmercury across headwater watersheds. We applied this IEMS to the Coal River Basin (CRB), West Virginia (USA), an 8-digit hydrologic unit watershed, by simulating a network of 97 stream segments using the SWAT watershed model, a watershed mercury loading model, the WASP water quality model, the PiSCES fish community estimation model, a fish habitat suitability model, the BASS fish community and bioaccumulation model, and an ecoservices post-processer.

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Why is it important?

This companion study evaluates baseline predictions of ecoservices provided for 1990–2010 for the population of streams in the CRB and serves as a foundation for future model development. We demonstrate a novel, spatially explicit assessment of the current condition of aquatic ecosystem services, with limited sensitivity analysis for the atmospheric contaminant mercury.