One year ago, I wrote about a bit of a rabbit hole I stepped into regarding the name of a local city-owned nature preserve and confusion over some naming on the maps of a couple of streams that run through or around the Plum Brook Nature Preserve (aka. Sterling Heights Nature Preserve). Now, one year and counting later, I’d call that situation still ongoing.

While I managed to get Open Street Maps and Apple Maps corrected on my own (and two legitimate questions are “why me?” and “don’t you have anything better to do?” :-D), the error persists with the USGS National Map (as well as all the other maps that may rely upon it). That includes Google Maps. A year ago, I connected with a USGS cartographer who confirmed my finding but told me all changes were frozen because of their switch between the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) and the new 3D Hydrography Program (3DHP). I bet you came here to learn about those two acronyms, eh?

As it turns out, changes are still frozen, and I managed to confirm again with the USGS (a very fast help desk BTW) – yes, the maps are wrong, confusing Plum Brook stream and Chrissman Drain. And they don’t know when they can be fixed, because they are still migrating to this fancy new 3DHP. Yes, I can sense your disappointment too.

I realize this is a rather hyperlocal topic sparking little interest to anyone outside my … well, maybe my brain. I think I’ve only talked to one person that seemed to have a clue what I was talking about – a local county drain engineer, but even he didn’t seem interested in getting it fixed. He may or may not have suggested therapy.

An Autumn Aerial visit

All of this surfaced again when I visited the preserve to take in some local autumn colors and make some photographs. I happened to look at a map that had the streams misidentified, which prompted me to think… still?! But as a naturalist, I am also interested in geomorphology, which is featured in some of my photographs, which tends to lead me down a lot of rabbit holes.

One such question came to mind …. what is the difference between a stream, a creek, and a brook?! The USGS classifies the Plum Brook (the real one!) as a stream. Then, I learned that rivers are streams, but not all rivers are. (Kinda like all toads are frogs, but not all frogs are toads). And somewhere in my naturalist education, I missed 12 orders of streams. Anything generally larger than a 6th-order is considered a river. The Amazon is regarded as a 12th-order stream. Who knew? (um, probably all hydrologists on the planet) But then that prompts the question – “I wonder what stream order is Plum Brook?“

The terms of creek and brook seem to be a bit more cultural than scientific classifications. Although I did read one informal definition that stated it is a brook if you can step across it. If such a crossing involves allowance for getting one wet foot, then I can confirm that Plum Brook is indeed a brook. Even if later on it does get wider, calling it Plum Stream just sounds dumb.

After a bit more digging on some GIS maps, I did find a classification of the Plum Brook begins as a 1st-order stream but grows to a 3rd-order stream as other drains and water bodies (including the Chrissman Drain! Ahem!) merge with it.¹

Another interesting aspect of this preserve is the clear transition between open wetland areas and forested wetlands/floodplains. I think this provides a good visual of how wetlands filter water that flows through them. The Plum Brook splintered (i.e., bifurcated) into many little tributaries while flowing through the open wetland areas of the preserve before converging as it moved into the tree canopy.

As it turns out, the bifurcating was concentrated in a circular area — and this area, I believe, may be a wetland prairie pothole – a remnant of the retreat of the glaciers. There are a lot of land features in my local area that are signs of the glaciation across the Great Lakes. But this is one that I would have never noticed on the ground. That’s rather special because 80-90% of the pre-settlement wetlands in Southeast Michigan have been destroyed – and this may be a unique feature within a local one.

As you may have surmised, I often use photography to learn more about my environment because I am curious about what things are and why they do what they do. More often than not, I find out later how little I know about what I am looking at. I cannot remember all this stuff; so much comes up when I think about photo captions or keywords. As a result, I can become a better naturalist by using photography as a catalyst for learning. In the field, I gradually learned more about our local ecology and habitats, which helped with the photographs.

1. Clinton River Watershed explorer – Michigan State University, accessed 28 Oct 2024 https://iwr.msu.edu/clintonriver/StoryMaps/WatershedTour ↩︎