5  Streams and Waterbodies

5.1 Amount of water

e.g. how many miles of streams, how many acres of lakes/ponds/etc. in the watershed

TO-DO: Calculate this by basin (MDEQ definitions, not HUCs)

5.1.1 Stream Lengths

Table 5.1: Length (mi) of stream types in the MSEP watershed

Type	total_miles
Artificial Path	1,496.8
Canal/Ditch	145.3
Coastline	308.7
Connector	26.6
Stream/River	5.2
Stream/River: Intermittent	20,350.3
Stream/River: Perennial	11,730.7

5.1.2 Waterbody Areas

Table 5.2: Total area (acres) of water body types in the MSEP watershed

Type	total_acres
Lake/Pond: Intermittent	70.6
Lake/Pond: Perennial	67,602.0
Lake/Pond: Perennial; Average Water Elevation	27,726.5
Lake/Pond: Perennial; Normal Pool	9.5
Reservoir	48.2
Reservoir: Aquaculture	471.6
Reservoir; Treatment	954.8
Swamp/Marsh	251,495.2

5.2 Designated Uses

The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), per the federal Clean Water Act of 1972, is responsible for classifying surface waters in Mississippi into ‘designated uses’ (e.g. fish and wildlife, recreation, shellfish harvesting, public water supply) and creating water quality standards to ensure designated uses can be met. More detail on designated uses and water quality standards can be found on MDEQ’s website.

A 305(b) report (the most recent as of this writing is from 2024; pdf available here) is generated every other year, and quantifies how many and which water bodies are / are not meeting the criteria for their designated use.

Here, we are only summarizing designated uses within the Mississippi Sound Watershed - not assessment of whether criteria are met. See the 305(b) report linked above for more detailed information.

The tables below do not include the general ‘Fish and Wildlife’ designation; that designation applies to most waters of the state.

Miles of streams with each designated use in the MS Sound Watershed

Code	Description	Miles
REC	Recreation	1,011.6
PWS	Public Water Supply	26.3
SHF-REC	Shellfish Harvesting & Recreation	25.3
FW1	Fish and Wildlife	10.4
EPH	Ephemeral	1.8

Area of non-linear waterbodies with each designated use in the MS Sound Watershed

Code	Description	Square Miles	Acres
REC	Recreation	742.2	475,019.3
PWS	Public Water Supply	34.8	22,259.2
SHF-REC	Shellfish Harvesting & Recreation	22.0	14,100.5
PWS-REC	Public Water Supply & Recreation	0.2	119.8

Figure 5.1: Designated uses of streams and waterbodies of the Mississippi Sound Watershed (navy outline on map), within the state of MS, as defined by MDEQ in the 2015 Water Quality Standards dataset. Data provided by MDEQ.

5.3 Impairments

303d, TMDLs - How many, where are they, what are the TMDLs for. What problems are we dealing with in the watershed.

About

The .qmd file that generated this section was: streams_waterbodies.qmd.

For information on data processing, see Appendix A.3.1.