Snuffbox. Fatmucket. Round pigtoe. Plain pocketbook. While these evocative names sound like obscure wrestling moves or playground insults, they are actually just a few of the 28 species of mussels that make the shallow waters of French Creek their home.

One of the most ecologically diverse habitats in the Northeast, the creek has become a kind of last refuge for many species that are facing extinction in other parts of the country.

That makes the continued protection of the 117-mile waterway a pressing concern for Director of Conservation Science Darran Crabtree and his Conservancy colleagues. But thanks to a new method of freshwater conservation called the Active River Area, developed by the Conservancy’s freshwater team, the future of French Creek and other rivers worldwide may have gotten a little clearer.

Thinking Outside the Channel

The Active River Area theory builds upon years of freshwater conservation experience and uses the latest in Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to determine the most important places to work and key biological processes that must be maintained to keep a river or stream healthy.

“Rivers are not static,” explains Crabtree. “We’ve learned that much of the diversity of places like French Creek is directly related to the movement of water, sediment, materials and organisms throughout the landscape.

“This new approach offers us a more holistic version of a river than just the channel itself, as it exists in one place, at one particular time,” he says. “Instead, the river also becomes the lands with which it interacts through events like floods, as well as the natural processes that occur along the way.”

The resulting data and maps provide a detailed framework for establishing protected areas, improving river management policies and guiding restoration activities. Protection of the active river area also offers many benefits to people. By keeping the active floodplain areas in more natural conditions, the twin threats of flood and erosion are lessened, leading to a lower risk of damage to public and private property. 

A Bright Future

The Active River Area theory is already being applied in the Upper Allegheny River basin, a landscape stretching from New York into Pennsylvania (see map), and will soon be used across the region. That’s good news for the rare clubshell and northern riffleshell mussels found in French Creek, as well as for countless natural and human communities that depend directly on healthy freshwater systems for survival.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © George C. Gress/TNC (Confluence of French Creek with the Allegheny River); Photo © TNC (Mussels).