{"id":183338,"date":"2026-05-04T09:54:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/183338\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T09:54:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:54:41","slug":"steam-visual-assessment-protocol-environment-planning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/183338\/","title":{"rendered":"Steam Visual Assessment Protocol | Environment & Planning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sub-Watersheds<\/a>
\nMap 1: When Sub-watersheds Were Assessed<\/a><\/p>\n

During Phase 3 of the Regional Niagara River\/ Lake Erie Watershed Management Plan project the Lake Erie Watershed Protection Alliance (LEWPA) hired and trained interns to walk the streams of the Niagara River\/Lake Erie Watershed and take observations every 200 feet using a modified Stream Visual Assessment Protocol (SVAP) procedure from NRCS.<\/a> Five of the 19 sub-watersheds were assessed in this manner by Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper in Phase 2 of the project. During Phase 3 of the project, the remaining sub-watersheds, with the exception of the Lake Erie Shoreline Sub-watershed (aka Pelee Island Sub-watershed), were assessed by LEWPA (2021-2024). This is because the protocol was designed for streams that could be walked and was not adapted to the Lake Erie coast. In total, 18 sub-watersheds had streams assessed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Field
\nImage 1: J. Schinzel in the field taking SVAP measurements<\/p>\n

There are approximately 5,540 miles of waterways in the Niagara River\/Lake Erie Watershed. The goal was to assess approximately 10% of the waterways (554 miles). In total, 462 miles of waterways were assessed or 8.3%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Data for each sub-watershed assessed in Phase 3 was visualized to help quickly identify areas with issues or areas in good shape in need of protection. You can access the results for each sub-watershed below.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Big Sister Creek-Frontal Lake Erie Sub-watershed<\/a><\/p>\n

Buffalo Creek Sub-watershed<\/a><\/p>\n

Canadaway Creek-Frontal Lake Erie Sub-watershed<\/a><\/p>\n

Cattaraugus Creek Sub-watershed<\/a><\/p>\n

Cayuga Creek Sub-watershed<\/a><\/p>\n

Chautauqua Creek-Frontal Lake Erie Sub-watershed<\/a><\/p>\n

Ellicott Creek Sub-watershed<\/a><\/p>\n

Headwaters Cattaraugus Creek Sub-watershed<\/a> – being edited<\/p>\n

Middle Tonawanda Creek Sub-watershed<\/a><\/p>\n

Murder Creek Sub-watershed<\/a><\/p>\n

Niagara River Sub-watershed<\/a><\/p>\n

Sixmile Creek-Frontal Lake Erie Sub-watershed<\/a><\/p>\n

Walnut Creek Sub-watershed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Map 1: When Sub-watersheds Were Assessed During Phase 3 of the Regional Niagara River\/ Lake Erie Watershed Management…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-183338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}