A Stronghold Watershed is a Maryland 12-digit scale watershed considered critical to the protection of primarily freshwater fish and mussel species that are rare, threatened, endangered, in need of conservation, or otherwise of conservation concern (i.e., designated as Species of Greatest Conservation Need in 2005). Factors considered in identifying these watersheds included global, regional and state rarity; species abundance and distribution; overall species richness (diversity present within the watershed); and overall importance towards ecosystem conservation at the 8-digit watershed scale. Stronghold Watersheds were ranked based on these factors into two Tiers: those ranked highest based on the factor criteria for individual species were classified as Tier 1, as well as watersheds with the highest diversity, and those ranked next highest based on the criteria for species diversity were classified as Tier 2. 160 of 1,136 watersheds (14%) are currently identified as Tier 1 (118 watersheds) or Tier 2 (42 watersheds).
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{'Title': 'Watersheds', 'Author': 'BDAVI', 'Comments': '', 'Subject': '', 'Category': '', 'AntialiasingMode': 'None', 'TextAntialiasingMode': 'Force', 'Keywords': 'Watersheds,MBSS,Bionet,Tier 1,Tier 2'}
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