Benthic Macroinvertebrate and Water Quality Monitoring in Willow Creek

Steve Schubert volunteers with the Glacial Lakes Conservancy, Inc. (GLC) to conduct stream monitoring in Willow Creek near Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Willow Creek is a small cold-water tributary to the Sheboygan River. The riparian habitat is mostly protected by GLC, but the stream still receives stormwater runoff from the impervious surfaces in the watershed. GLC is a private, non-profit land conservation organization with the goal of serving to protect and preserve natural areas and farmland. This monitoring was conducted under the Water Action Volunteers (WAV) program. The WAV is a stream monitoring partnership program between the University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Extension, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and nearly 50 local partner groups and organizations.  The WAV program aims to preserve, protect and restore Wisconsin’s 86,000+ miles of streams and rivers by educating and empowering volunteers to gather high-quality stream data useful for decision-making and natural resource management, and share their data and knowledge. Steve spends his Saturday mornings, once a month, collecting and identifying benthic invertebrates and testing the water for dissolved oxygen, transparency, and temperature, and measuring stream flow (discharge). And because the other volunteers have varying amounts of experience, Steve also uses his expertise to teach and mentor them during data collection.

Figure 1. Stream training day along Willow Creek for WAV volunteers.

Figure 2. A caddis fly larvae in a stick/leaf case holding onto a previously submerged branch

Figure 3: A native crayfish species collected from Willow Creek.