Several state and federal agencies concerned with water quality are cooperating to develop uniform protocols for macroinvertebrate sampling in Alaska. AWW staff will revise the current materials on sampling bugs and publish that information and forms on this page.
Introduction There are many ways to determine the health of a particular body of water for fish.
We may observe conditions on or near the water, we may look for animals that depend upon clean water, we may test the water for the presence or absence of harmful chemicals, and we may note impacts of development. All of these methods depend upon accurate observations using specific procedures to generate data that can be relied upon. Stream surveys are performed by fisheries biologists when assessing watershed health and productivity. Differences in data between survey sites along a stream may indicate areas of concern. Information gathered from consecutive surveys performed over several years provides baseline data upon which many resource decisions are made.