The national fish habitat partnership is a unique aquatic habitat conservation delivery program that has been sing a cooperative, non-regulatory, and science-guided approach since 2006 to change the…

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service awarded a $136,000 Project Grant to the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA) under the Multistate Conservation Grant Program (CFDA 15.628). The purpose of this grant is to update the National Fish Habitat Assessment by: 1) updating data layers used in past assessments to their most recent versions, 2) addressing known gaps in hydrology, forest harvest, and grazing intensity data with a focus on hydrology, and 3) generating new assessment product components using the same analytical approach as the 2015 assessment. This updated assessment will inform Congress, federal and state agencies, the National Fish Habitat Partnership, non-governmental organizations, and the public on the current state of fish habitat across the United States. The project will be completed by December 31, 2025.

The national fish habitat partnership is a unique aquatic habitat conservation delivery program that has been sing a cooperative, non-regulatory, and science-guided approach since 2006 to change the condition of fisheries through 20 fish habitat partnerships across the entire country. This approach was codified by congress in the americas conservation enhancement act 2020. To provide the foundational science underlying this effort and to assist in conservation planning, the national fish habitat partnership board has generated two national fish habitat assessments in 2010 and 2015. Both assessments including methods, results and data are on the national fish habitat partnerships website (fishhabitat.ORG) and are available to the public. One of the key elements of the 2020 act is an unfunded requirement to continue assessing the nations fish habitat and to fill gaps in the previous assessments by the end of 2025. To meet this need, we will use an analytical approach similar to past assessments that examines influences of landscape stressors such as aquatic connectivity and urban development on fish communities. This assessment will inform users of the level of degradation to aquatic habitats along with those key stressors impacting habitat condition and associated degradation scores across the nation. This project will update the currently out-of-date assessment and complete part of the 2020 congressional requirement by: 1) updating data layers used in the past assessments to their most recent versions 2) addressing known gaps in hydrology, forest harvest, and grazing intensity with a focus on hydrology and 3) generating new assessment product componentswith a similar spatial scale and look to the 2015 assessment using the same analytical approach cited in that product. This product is targeted at individuals and entities that are interested about the state of fish habitat in the united states and includes congress and their staffs, aquatic habitat conservation leaders and staff at state and federal agency levels, national fish habitat partnership board members and fish habitat partnerships along with their partners which number over 1500 at this time, non-governmental organizations involved in aquatic habitat conservation, and the interested public.