Assets and Needs Assessment of Senior Residents in the West Bloomington Neighborhood

The experience and process of aging has become a prominent topic of discussion nationwide and Central Illinois is no exception, due to the rapid growth within the senior population in the area. The 60 and over population of Illinois is projected to grow by 87% during the next 30 years (The Maturing of Illinois). An initiative has been developed to evaluate how prepared local communities are for older adults by conducting needs assessments, which can also serve as vital tools for those who plan and provide human services in communities. Often community leaders will form policies and allocate limited resources based on assumptions about the needs of the senior population and outdated information (Parsons and Higley 1995). This report is part of a larger needs assessment that will serve as a resource for community leaders to use in future policies and projects that will involve senior West Bloomington residents. This report examines needs of the senior population of West Bloomington as well as how organizations provide for those needs as evaluated by the senior population themselves. Based on our findings and recognizing the limitations of the study, we make recommendations for action and future research

DataSheet1_Can hydraulic measures of river conditions improve our ability to predict ecological responses to changing flows? Flow velocity and spawning of an iconic native Australian fish.docx

Ecological responses to changing riverine flows are often evaluated by describing the relationship between river discharge and response. However, aquatic organisms experience the hydraulics (i.e. velocity, shear stress, depth) of a river, not its discharge. Hydraulic characterizations of riverine habitats may improve our ability to predict ecological responses. We used two-dimensional hydraulic models to translate river discharge into flow velocity. We used discharge and reach-averaged velocity, along with water temperature and 8 years of field observations of fish spawning, to develop predictive models of the spawning of golden perch (Macquaria ambigua) in the Goulburn River, south-east Australia. Probability of spawning was positively related to both discharge and reach-averaged velocity. Water temperature was critical for enabling the flow response, and antecedent flows prior to spawning had a weak positive effect. Against expectations, there was little difference in predictive uncertainty for the effect of flows when reach-averaged velocity was used as the main predictor rather than discharge. The lower Goulburn River has a relatively simple channel and so discharge and velocity are monotonically related over most flows. We expect that in a more geomorphically complex environment, improvement in predictive ability would be substantial. This research only explores one example of a hydraulic parameter being used as a predictor of ecological response; many others are possible. The extra effort and expense involved in hydraulic characterization of river flows is only justified if our understanding of flow-ecology relationships is substantially improved. Further research to understand which environmental responses might be best understood through different hydraulic parameters, and how to better characterize hydraulic characteristics relevant to riverine biota, would help inform decisions regarding investment in hydraulic models. Regardless, hydraulics offers a more process-based assessment of ecological responses to changing flows, has the potential to facilitate mechanistic understanding rather than just associations, and provides the opportunity to translate hydraulic metrics that drive ecological responses across river systems of differing sizes. However, while considering ecological responses in terms of river hydraulics is more physically realistic, our results suggest that average hydraulic conditions may not result in an improved ability to predict the effects of changing flows.</p

DataSheet2_Can hydraulic measures of river conditions improve our ability to predict ecological responses to changing flows? Flow velocity and spawning of an iconic native Australian fish.docx

Ecological responses to changing riverine flows are often evaluated by describing the relationship between river discharge and response. However, aquatic organisms experience the hydraulics (i.e. velocity, shear stress, depth) of a river, not its discharge. Hydraulic characterizations of riverine habitats may improve our ability to predict ecological responses. We used two-dimensional hydraulic models to translate river discharge into flow velocity. We used discharge and reach-averaged velocity, along with water temperature and 8 years of field observations of fish spawning, to develop predictive models of the spawning of golden perch (Macquaria ambigua) in the Goulburn River, south-east Australia. Probability of spawning was positively related to both discharge and reach-averaged velocity. Water temperature was critical for enabling the flow response, and antecedent flows prior to spawning had a weak positive effect. Against expectations, there was little difference in predictive uncertainty for the effect of flows when reach-averaged velocity was used as the main predictor rather than discharge. The lower Goulburn River has a relatively simple channel and so discharge and velocity are monotonically related over most flows. We expect that in a more geomorphically complex environment, improvement in predictive ability would be substantial. This research only explores one example of a hydraulic parameter being used as a predictor of ecological response; many others are possible. The extra effort and expense involved in hydraulic characterization of river flows is only justified if our understanding of flow-ecology relationships is substantially improved. Further research to understand which environmental responses might be best understood through different hydraulic parameters, and how to better characterize hydraulic characteristics relevant to riverine biota, would help inform decisions regarding investment in hydraulic models. Regardless, hydraulics offers a more process-based assessment of ecological responses to changing flows, has the potential to facilitate mechanistic understanding rather than just associations, and provides the opportunity to translate hydraulic metrics that drive ecological responses across river systems of differing sizes. However, while considering ecological responses in terms of river hydraulics is more physically realistic, our results suggest that average hydraulic conditions may not result in an improved ability to predict the effects of changing flows.</p

The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used this evidence base to develop global and regional statistical models of how local biodiversity responds to these measures. We describe and make freely available this 2016 release of the database, containing more than 3.2 million records sampled at over 26,000 locations and representing over 47,000 species. We outline how the database can help in answering a range of questions in ecology and conservation biology. To our knowledge, this is the largest and most geographically and taxonomically representative database of spatial comparisons of biodiversity that has been collated to date; it will be useful to researchers and international efforts wishing to model and understand the global status of biodiversity