StreamThermal: A Software Package for Calculating Thermal Metrics from Stream Temperature Data. Issue 9 (24th August 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Tsang, Yin‐Phan; Infante, Dana M.; Stewart, Jana; Wang, Lizhu; Tingly, Ralph W.; Thornbrugh, Darren; Cooper, Arthur R.; Daniel, Wesley M.
• Is Part Of: Fisheries. Volume 41:Issue 9(2016)
• Page Start: 548
• Page End: 554
• Publication Date: 2016-08-24
• Subjects: Fishery management -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 338.3720973
• DOI: 10.1080/03632415.2016.1210517
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0363-2415

Abstract

Abstract : Improving quality and better availability of continuous stream temperature data allow natural resource managers, particularly in fisheries, to understand associations between different characteristics of stream thermal regimes and stream fishes. However, there is no convenient tool to efficiently characterize multiple metrics reflecting stream thermal regimes with the increasing amount of data from continuously recording data loggers. This article describes a software program packaged as a library in R to facilitate this process. With this freely available package, users will be able to quickly summarize metrics that describe five categories of stream thermal regimes: magnitude, variability, frequency, timing, and rate of change. The installation and usage instruction of this package, the definition of calculated thermal metrics, as well as the output format from the package are described, along with an application showing the utility for multiple metrics. We believe that this package can be widely utilized by interested stakeholders and can greatly assist future fisheries studies.