Water quality, biological diversity and the ecological integrity of aquatic ecosystems currently are threatened by changing land-use activities.  To accomplish the rehabilitation and restoration of degraded river systems, we require a deeper understanding of the impacts of development and land management across multiple spatial scales.  Our project  brings together the approaches of land-use planning, resource economics, aquatic ecology, and spatial analysis.  Our intent is to produce an integrated, interdisciplinary model that will relate existing land use to its ecological consequences for rivers, and also to provide a framework in which innovative alternative designs can be examined for their social acceptability, economic valuation, and ecological outcomes.

The location  is southeastern Michigan includes two watersheds.  Both the Huron and Raisin Watersheds include a mix of urban land, suburban sprawl, agriculture, forested areas and wetlands.  A GIS  shows the distribution of land use throughout the study areas.

Ecological analysis  will quantify the ecological integrity of approximately 60 small tributary streams based on indicators derived from sampling of fish, macroinvertebrates, and habitat.  Economic analysis will investigate the relationship between ecological integrity and the value of alternative land uses, and whether these are complementary or substitutable qualities.  Social preference for alternative landscape designs  employs simulated digital images to evaluate the acceptability of alternative landscape designs.  These different approaches will be integrated into a decision support model.  We hope that the results of this project will provide information to assist local citizens, government decision-makers, developers, and others in examining the complex relationships between land use/cover and aquatic ecosystem health, and to explore the fullest possible range of alternatives in making the decisions that determine our common future.