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Glossary
Algae: A chlorophyll-containing plant ranging from one to many cells in size, that lives in fresh or salt water.
Anadromous: Fish that return from salt water to fresh water to spawn (e.g., salmon, steelhead).
Aquatic Insect: Insect species whose larval and/or juvenile forms live in the water.
Aquifer: Any underground geological formation containing water.
Bedrock: Unbroken solid rock, overlain in most places by soil or rock fragments.
Benthic: Bottom-dwelling. The plant and animal life whose habitat is the bottom of a sea, lake, or river.
Channelized: The straightening and deepening of streams. Channelization reduces the ability of the stream to assimilate waste and disturbs fish breeding areas.
Clarity: The clearness of the water in the stream.
Conifers: A cone-bearing Evergreen tree or shrub (a pine tree, for example).
Cover: Overhanging or instream structures (such as tree roots, undercut streambanks, or boulders) that offer protection from predators, shelter from strong currents, and/or shading.
Current: The velocity (speed) of the flow of water.
Deciduous: A tree which sheds its foliage at the end of the growing season.
Ecosystem: The interacting system of a biological community (plants, animals) and its non-living environment.
Effluent: The wastewater from a municipal or industrial source that is discharged into the water.
Erosion: The wearing away of the land surface by wind or water.
EPA: Environmental Protection Agency.
Filling: The process of depositing dirt and mud in marshy areas (wetlands) or in the water to create more land. Filling disturbs natural ecological cycles.
Gradient: The slope or steepness of the stream.
Groundwater: The supply of freshwater under the earth's surface in an aquifer or soil.
Habitat: The specific environment in which an organism lives and on which it depends for food and shelter.
Headwaters: Small creeks at the uppermost end of a stream system, often found in the mountains, that contribute to larger creeks and rivers.
Mass Wasting: Downward movement of dry soil and rock caused by gravity (often called slides or avalanches).
Monitor: To measure a characteristic, such as streambank condition, dissolved oxygen, or fish population, using uniform methods to evaluate change over a period of time.
Nonpoint Source Pollution: "Diffuse" pollution, generated from large areas with no particular point of pollutant origin, but rather from many individual places. Urban and agricultural areas generate nonpoint source pollutants.
Nutrient: Any substance, such as fertilizer, phosphorous, and nitrogen compounds, that enhances the growth of plants and animals.
Point Source Pollution: A discharge of water pollution to a stream or other body of water, via an identifiable pipe, vent, or culvert.
Pool: An area of relatively deep slow water in a stream that offers shelter to fish.
Quality Control (QC): The system of checks that are used to generate excellence, or quality, in a program (a monitoring program, for example). QC asks if we are doing things right.
Quality Assurance (QA): Quality Assurance is a way to see that QC is maintained and is we are monitoring the right things to detect changes in water quality.
Reach: A stream section with fairly homogeneous characteristics.
Redd: Shallow depression in the streambed gravel in which a female salmonid deposits her eggs.
Riffle: A shallow, gravelly area of streambed with swift current. Used for spawning by salmonids and other fishes.
Riprap: A sustaining wall built of rocks.
Riparian Area: An area, adjacent to and along a watercourse, often vegetated and constituting a buffer zone between the nearby lands and the watercourse.
Run: A stretch of fast smooth current, deeper than a riffle.
Runoff: The portion of rainfall, melted snow, or irrigation water that flows across ground surface and is eventually returned to streams. Runoff can pick up pollutants from the air or the land and carry them to streams, lakes, and oceans.
Salmonid: Fish that are members of the family Salmonidae ( includes salmon, trout, char, and whitefish).
Sediment: Fine soil or mineral particles that settle to the bottom of the water or are suspended in it.
Stormwater Runoff: Water that washes off the land after a rainstorm. In developed watersheds, it flows off roofs and pavement into storm drains that may feed directly into the stream; often carries concentrated pollutants.
Substrate: The material that makes up the bottom layer of the stream, such as gravel, sand, or bedrock.
Stream Corridor: The lower and upperbanks of a perennial or intermittent stream.
Stream Mouth: The place where a stream empties into a lake,
ocean, or another stream.
Suspended Sediments: Fine material or soil particles that remain suspended by the current until deposited in areas of weaker current. They create turbidity and, when deposited, can smother fish eggs or alevins. Can be measured in a laboratory as "Total Suspended Solids" (TSS).
Topographic: The configuration of a surface area including its relief, or relative elevations, and the position of its natural and man-made features.
U.S.G.S.: U.S. Geological Survey.
Wetlands: Wetlands are lands where saturation with water is the dominant factor determining the nature of soil development. They also can be identified by unique plants which have adapted to oxygen-deficient (anaerobic) soils. Wetlands influence stream flows and water quality.
Zoning: To designate, by ordinances, areas of land reserved and regulated for specific uses, such as residential, industrial, or open space.
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