BLM AIM Lotic Indicators: Aquatic Monitoring Data for U.S. Public Lands

Monitoring data collected nationally to understand the status, condition, and trend of aquatic resources on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands. Data are collected under the BLM Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring (AIM) Strategy using a probabilistic sampling design and standard core indicators. Data were collected by BLM field offices and crews and are stored in a centralized database at the BLM National Operations Center.

Use Cases

• Modeling water quality trends based on pH, conductivity, temperature, nitrogen, and phosphorus indicators.
• Assessing stream habitat structure based on pool depth, streambed particle sizes, and large woody debris data.
• Analyzing riparian vegetation and bank stability based on ocular estimates of vegetative type, cover, and structure.
• Evaluating macroinvertebrate biological integrity for ecological health assessments.

Strengths

• Data collection follows a standardized national strategy (BLM AIM) with a probabilistic sampling design.
• Includes a defined set of core and contingent aquatic indicators, such as pH, conductivity, and bank stability.
• Data are stored in a centralized database managed by the BLM National Operations Center.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior

Collection Method

Field data collected in accordance with the BLM AIM Strategy, using electronic data capture.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-11 16:02:07.724618; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Bureau of Land Management lands across the United States