Upscaling: Integrating habitat model into river management

Abstract

Physical habitat modelling has been developed at the scale best applicable to short river stretches and selected species of fish. The integration of these models into management practices at the river and watershed scale would therefore require corresponding modifications in both the models and results. Such procedures fall into three major categories: biological, spatial and temporal upscaling. Biological upscaling develops methods for applying habitat models to aquatic communities, as opposed to individual indicator species. Spatial upscaling creates a hierarchical framework through which to translate habitat observations from the species to management scale. Temporal upscaling incorporates biological and hydro-morphological dynamics into the static model. In the following paper the upscaling concept will be described in greater detail, illustrating its application with the example of the Quinebaug River in New England. © 2003 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.