Big Darby Creek Watershed - Darby Ecosystems

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Buckeye on Big Darby Creek

Ecosystems of Big Darby Creek Watershed

Stream

Wetland/Riparian Forest

Oak Savanna

Tallgrass Prairie

Bluff Prairie

Big and Little Darby Creeks, located twenty miles west of downtown Columbus, are the major streams in a 580-square-mile watershed encompassing portions of six counties in central Ohio.

The Big Darby Creek main stem is approximately 88 miles long, with 245 miles of tributaries that flow from the headwaters near Marysville to its confluence with the Scioto River near Circleville. The land that is drained by the Darby system is called the Darby Watershed.

Ecological Importance

The Darby Creek watershed is the healthiest and most diverse aquatic system of its size in the midwest. It is among the top five warm freshwater habitats in the nation. The Darby Creeks wind through a landscape that includes remnant prairies and savannas once part of a tallgrass prairie ecosystem. The quiet waters of Big and Little Darby harbor 103 species of fish and 38 species of mollusks. While the rural character of the Darby Plains has helped maintain Big Darby Creek's exceptional water quality, changes in the landscape have begun to threaten the aquatic organisms.

Ecosystem Threats

As agricultural and urban development pressures increase, there is an increase in associated stresses to the system. Stresses to the Darby ecosystem connected with agriculture and urban sources are many and varied.

Sediment, nutrient and chemical loading from agricultural fields and the stormwater runoff from urbanizing areas represent the primary threats from a water quality perspective. Land use in the drainage basin has historically been production agriculture, with approximately 80% of the land area in fields row-cropped in a corn-soybean rotation.

Because Columbus is now one of the fastest growing cities in America, conversion of the watershed from agricultural to urban land uses presents an increased threat to the health of this aquatic system.

Large intense pulses of water entering both the tributaries and mainstems of the Darby Creeks are the result of stormwater runoff and subsurface drainage systems. Such pulses can result in downstream flooding, the destabilization of stream banks, and the disruption of both streambed and riparian habitats.