Midwest Biodiversity Institute’s Randy Sanders recently completed a new edition of the popular 25-year-old educational book “A Guide to Ohio Streams”. The new edition is titled “The Ohio Stream Guide – Understanding the Natural History and Biodiversity” (OSG). The OSG has an updated version of the original ten chapters along with 40 new pages summarizing Ohio’s stream related history in the last 250 years. The two new chapters (The Ohio Country: 1775 – 1850 and Restoring the Ohio Country: 1950 – 2025) are separated by a double spread (The Next One Hundred Years) which bridges the two 75-year periods with a collage of 40 vintage photographs. This 250-year period helps one understand how a pristine environment was impacted by European settlement and today’s restoration efforts including land acquisition, habitat and water quality improvements, H2Ohio programs, dam removal and the control and prevention of invasive species.

As before, the OSG’s first 10 chapters include general information on Ohio streams including their geology and geography, habitat and water quality, ecology, wildlife diversity, recreation, laws, protection and conservation and major watershed summaries. A folded map showing the Principal Streams and Watershed of Ohio is again provided with each copy. The continuity between the two editions was enhanced by Sanders (original editor) once again partnering with Ron Zimmerman (original information and graphic designer) to revise the OSG.

“It was great working on this publication again with Ron,” said Sanders. “Although, originally written and designed to provide general aquatic information to streamside landowners, it’s turned out to be an excellent general stream guide, textbook and reference. In addition to many landowner families, it’s been widely used by schools, universities, water resource professionals and many libraries. It continues to also be a valuable source for a multitude of reference information. The combination of text and graphics we used really makes it a fun and productive way of learning for the user.”

The project was funded by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife and published in coordination with the Ohio Chapter of the American Fisheries Society. The free educational publication is available from MBI and the other entities that contributed to the printing. Contact MBI’s Rich Carter for more details: rcarter@mwbinst.com.