While fish habitat was found to be generally to be at very low or low risk of degradation in this mostly arid western region of the United States, water availability (hydrology – a key fish habitat process and driver of fish habitat) could only be partly examined using the available datasets in this Assessment. The lack of information on the status of water flow in many basins has led them being overestimated in fish habitat quality, even if streams in these basins are actually dry most of year. Additionally, data availability for grazing intensity, another key landscape use, is also unavailable, and has also created situations where the Assessment overestimates habitat quality. Despite such absences, impairment to fish habitats was [...]
