Statistical Analysis for Integrated Paired Watershed Studies.

Investigators: Lisa M. Ganio, OSU Department of Forest Science; Robert Gresswell, U.S. Geological Survey Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center; Judith Li, OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife; Arne Skaugset, OSU Department of Forest Engineering.

This analysis seeks a better description of the data analysis that would consider cumulative impacts and better describe the integration that would occur between the original disciplinary projects.

An important objective in the Hinkle Creek Paired Watershed Study is the integration of responses from multiple spatial and temporal scales to examine the downstream cumulative impacts of management on the subject area responses. A study plan identified the complex interactions among these systems and the need to integrate multiple response variables over multiple spatial and temporal scales.

This project would develop the appropriate analysis methods for data from stream networks and describe how data from the individual disciplinary research projects would be integrated. These methods would be applicable to any ecological network and specifically apply to the multiple response variables in paired-watershed studies designed to address cumulative impacts of forest management on biotic and abiotic components of stream systems.

Objectives

1. Summarize existing statistical models used in natural resources and quantitative ecology to account for flow and autocorrelation for data from stream networks.
2. Evaluate the adequacy of these methods for the analysis of cumulative effects in paired-watershed studies.
3. Develop data analysis strategies to account for spatial autocorrelation and directional flows in data from paired watershed studies.

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