Channel Suspended Sediment and Fisheries: A Synthesis for Quantitative Assessment of Risk and Impact

Abstract Our meta-analysis of 80 published and adequately documented reports on fish responses to suspended sediment in streams and estuaries has yielded six empirical equations that relate biological response to duration of exposure and suspended sediment concentration. These equations answer an important need in fisheries management: quantifying the response of fishes to suspended sediment pollution of streams and estuaries has been difficult historically, and the lack of a reliable metric has hindered assessment for risk and impact for fishes subjected to excess sedimentation. The six equations address various taxonomic groups of lotic, lentic, and estuarine fishes, life stages of species within those groups, and particle sizes of suspended sediments. The equations all have the form z = a + b (log ex) + c(log ey); z is severity of ill effect, x is duration of exposure (h), y is concentration of suspended sediment (mg SS/L), a is the intercept, and b and c are slope coefficients. The severity of ill eff...

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