Fish Habitat: Essential Fish Habitat and Rehabilitation

<em>Abstract</em> .—New England aquatic, estuarine, and marine environments are highly variable and present distinct habitat features that support a number of commercial, recreational, and nontarget organisms. The heterogeneous environmental conditions found throughout New England provide important habitat characteristics for the reproduction, development, growth, feeding, and sustainability of fishery resources. Organisms have specific ontogenetic requirements that demonstrate their evolutionary adaptation to particular riverine, inshore, and offshore habitats. Habitat alteration and disturbance occur due to natural processes and human activities. Human-induced chemical, biological, and physical threats to habitat can have direct and indirect effects on local fish and mollusk populations. Increases in coastal development and humangenerated pollutants entering the environment are major threats to marine and aquatic habitats and are a result of increasing human population. Human activities and direct habitat alteration (e.g., hydrologic modifications) can disrupt environmental processes and conditions, and pollutants are discharged from a variety of nonpoint and point sources including runoff and industrial discharge, respectively. The sustainability of fishery resources in the New England region depends upon the protection of essential fish habitat. This protection includes identifying and understanding all potential nonfishing threats, point and nonpoint pollutant sources, and anthropogenic activities and impacts.