Remote Detection of Disturbance from Motorized Vehicle Use in Appalachian Wetlands

Wetland disturbance from motorized vehicle use is a growing concern across the Appalachian coalfields of southwestern Virginia and portions of adjacent states, particularly as both extractive industries and outdoor recreation development expand in regional communities. However, few attempts have been made in this region or elsewhere to adapt approaches that can assist researchers and land managers in remotely identifying and monitoring wetland habitats disturbed by motorized vehicle use. A comparative analysis of wetlands impacted and unimpacted by off-road vehicle activity at a public recreation area in Tazewell County, Virginia was conducted to determine if and how a common, satellite-derived index of vegetation health, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), can remotely detect wetland disturbance. NDVI values were consistently lower in wetlands impacted by several years of off-road vehicle use when compared to adjacent, unimpacted sites, with statistically-significant NDVI coldspots growing in size in impacted wetlands across the same time period. While considerations exist related to the resolution of data sources and the identification of specific modes of disturbance, NDVI and associated spatial analysis tools may provide a simple and cost-effective way for researchers and land managers to remotely monitor rates of wetland disturbance across mountainous portions of the eastern United States

Coastal Habitat Integrated Mapping and Monitoring Program report for the State of Florida

Mangrove swamps and salt marshes provide valuable ecological services to coastal ecosystems in Florida. Coastal wetlands are an important nursery for many ecologically and commercially important fish and invertebrates. The vegetation stabilizes shorelines, protecting the coast from wave energy, storm surge, and erosion. Coastal wetlands are also able to filter surface water runoff, removing excess nutrients and many pollutants. Peat deposits sequester large amounts of carbon, making coastal wetlands a key sink in global carbon cycles. Mangroves and salt marshes, however, are vulnerable to both direct and indirect threats from human development. Current threats include continued habitat loss, hydrologic alteration of surface and groundwater, sea-level rise, and invasive vegetation. ... Coastal wetland monitoring programs are often short-lived and vary widely in methodology. Monitoring most commonly occurs on protected public lands or at wetland mitigation or restoration sites. These monitoring projects are rarely long-term due to a lack of funding; restoration sites are generally monitored for only a few years. Although long-term funding is difficult to secure, monitoring over long time scales is increasingly important due to regional uncertainties as to how coastal wetland vegetation and substrate accretion will respond to sea-level rise, altered freshwater hydrology, and other disturbances. While periodic land cover mapping programs can capture large-scale changes in habitat extent, smaller-scale species shifts among mangrove and salt marsh vegetation are best captured by on-the-ground monitoring. The chapters in this report summarize recent mapping and monitoring programs in each region of Florida. Content of each chapter includes a general introduction to the region, location-specific threats to salt marshes and mangroves, a summary of selected mapping and monitoring programs, and recommendations for protection, management, and monitoring. Land cover maps in this report generally use data from the most recent water management district land use/land cover (LULC) maps

QUANTIFYING EFFECTS OF SEASONAL INUNDATION ON METHANE FLUXES FROM FORESTED FRESHWATER WETLANDS

Developing effective strategies for reducing methane and other greenhouse gas emissions requires a quantitative understanding of their global sources and sinks. Decomposition of organic matter in wet soils is one of the largest sources of methane to the atmosphere, but it is a highly variable process that remains difficult to quantify because we lack a predictive understanding of how environmental factors control methane emissions in wetlands. Hydrology is one of the most important factors controlling methane production wetlands along with temperature and vegetation, however it is unclear how to relate aspects of a wetland’s hydrologic regime to the timing, magnitude, and spatial extent of its methane emissions. Furthermore, discrepancies between the magnitude of global methane emissions calculated using different techniques indicate that current methods for measuring the extent and dynamics of wetland areas in global models may not adequately represent processes controlling methane cycling in wetlands and other small water bodies. I studied the role of seasonal hydrologic variability on methane emissions from forested mineral soil wetlands to inform modeling techniques at different scales. In Chapter 1, I show the importance of inundation extent and duration as major drivers of wetland methane emissions, that methane fluxes have a non-linear relationship with water level, and that methane fluxes are higher when water levels are falling rather than rising. In Chapter 2, I demonstrate a new technique for calculating methane emissions using high resolution satellite data to quantify wetland inundation time series, and some limits of current technology for modeling surface water dynamics in forested wetlands. Chapter 3 presents and applies a modeling framework for quantifying hydrologic fluxes of methane in the context of common forms of wetland restoration In combination, these studies establish how and why quantifying the hydrologic regime of seasonally inundated forested wetlands enables a more accurate estimation of methane emissions at multiple scales, that water level drawdown associated with the natural hydrologic regime of forested wetlands considerably reduces methane producing areas, and that improved methods for detecting and modeling surface water dynamics in low relief landscapes will improve our ability to quantify methane emissions

Linking frogs with flow: Amphibian community response to flow and rainfall on a dryland floodplain wetland

Floods structure the biota of floodplain wetlands, driving spatial and temporal patterns of vegetation, invertebrates, and waterbirds. Flood pulses trigger booms in productivity and biodiversity as aquatic biota respond to abundant freshwater habitat and resources. Water extraction and river regulation have decreased the magnitude, duration and frequency of floods, and reduced floodplain extent. To address this problem, environmental water management aims to restore wetland functioning by mimicking the natural flow regime but this requires knowledge of broad ecological responses and associations to flows. Despite amphibians forming a significant component of wetland foodwebs, their response to river flows is poorly known. My work focused on understanding this response in the Macquarie Marshes, a dryland floodplain wetland in Australia. The Macquarie Marshes are a wetland of international significance, severely affected by river regulation. They currently benefit from significant public environmental water investment initiatives. In this thesis I aimed to: (1) investigate variations in relationships between flooding and responses of amphibian species, and quantify the contribution amphibians make to the flood-pulse derived resource boom ; and (2) assess the threat river regulation poses compared to other known amphibian threats across Australia. In Chapter 1, I overviewed the current status of knowledge of amphibian response to flooding and relationships with flow regimes in floodplains. I then compared the relative influence of weather and inundation on movement and behaviour of two amphibian species, with different life histories (Chapter 2). In Chapter 3, I tested predictions, based on life history characteristics, of species flood associations by measuring adult abundance and calling abundance in relation to habitat and flow variables. I then calculated biomass of amphibians across different size floods, and compared the contributions of different flood-association groups (Chapter 4). I also assessed likely frog species at risk of the effects of river regulation across Australia, relative to other threats (Chapter 5), using understanding of the relationships between flooding and life histories of frog species. Finally in Chapter 6, I re-evaluated the threat of altered flow regimes on amphibians and the opportunities to effectively manage this threat for some frog species which respond to flood and inundation patterns

Impacts and effects of ocean warming on intertidal rocky habitats.

• Intertidal rocky habitats comprise over 50% of the shorelines of the world, supporting a diversity of marine life and providing extensive ecosystem services worth in the region of US$ 5-10 trillion per year. • They are valuable indicators of the impacts of climate change on the wider marine environment and ecosystems. • Changes in species distributions, abundance and phenology have already been observed around the world in response to recent rapid climate change. • Species-level responses will have considerable ramifications for the structure of communities and trophic interactions, leading to eventual changes in ecosystem functioning (e.g. less primary producing canopy-forming algae in the North-east Atlantic). • Whilst progress is made on the mitigation1 required to achieve goals of a lower-carbon world, much can be done to enhance resilience to climate change. Managing the multitude of other interactive impacts on the marine environment, over which society has greater potential control (e.g. overfishing, invasive non-native species, coastal development, and pollution), will enable adaptation1 in the short and medium term of the next 5-50 years

Proposed Implementation of a Cottonwood Management Plan Along Six Priority Segments of the Missouri River

The Missouri River originates in the Rocky Mountains of south-central Montana and flows approximately 2,341 miles through seven states, ending at its confluence with the Mississippi River near St. Louis, Missouri. The plains cottonwood (Populus deltoides) was once the dominant floodplain vegetation in the Missouri River ecosystem (Corps 2006a). Natural cottonwood regeneration has largely ceased along the Missouri River following the construction of the Missouri River Mainstem Reservoir System (System) and Bank Stabilization and Navigation Project (BSNP). The reduction in the number of young cottonwoods to replace older cottonwoods concerns biologists because a variety of plant and wildlife species, including some protected species, are associated with cottonwoods. Bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) depend on the adjacent cottonwood forest for nesting, roosting, and wintering habitat along the Missouri River. Past and ongoing U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) operations to serve Congressionally authorized project purposes, including flood control, have restricted overbank flooding causing the reduction of existing stands and new cottonwood establishment. The degradation of cottonwood forests will likely continue in the future and result in additional impacts to bald eagles. In response, the Corps and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), in partnership with tribal nations, states and other agencies, are working to restore a portion of the Missouri River’s natural form and function in order to recover Missouri River species provided protection under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA). The Missouri River Recovery Program (MRRP) implements the USFWS 2003 Amended Biological Opinion (BiOp) on the Corps operation of the System, BSNP, and Kansas River Tributary Reservoirs (KR) Projects. Pursuant to Section 5018 of the Water Resources Development Act of 2007 (WRDA 2007) the Corps, in consultation with the Missouri River Recovery Implementation Committee (MRRIC) is preparing a long-term and comprehensive Missouri River Ecosystem Restoration Plan (MRERP). The MRRIC includes representatives from Basin Tribes, states, and a diverse range of basin stakeholders. When complete, the MRERP will identify management actions to recover federally protected Missouri River species, mitigate losses of terrestrial and aquatic habitat, and prevent future declines of species. The Cottonwood Management Plan (CMP) is part of the MRRP. Ultimately, this plan may also inform the long-term MRERP. The MRRP incorporates the requirements of the Missouri River BSNP Fish and Wildlife Mitigation Project on the Lower River (Mitigation Project) with the actions required by the 2003 Amended BiOp (Appendix A). The Mitigation Project was authorized by Section 601(a) of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 1986 (Public Law 99-662). Title VI of the 1986 WRDA authorizes the Mitigation Project in accordance with the plans and subject to the conditions recommended in the Missouri River BSNP Final Feasibility Report and Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Fish and Wildlife Mitigation Plan (Corps 1981). The intent of the originally authorized Mitigation Project was to restore, preserve, and develop 18,200 acres of existing public lands and acquire and develop 29,900 acres of non-public land. A total of 48,100 acres of land in the four affected states, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri, would be acquired, restored, preserved, and developed for the Mitigation Project. Allocations of the acreage by affected states are presented in the report entitled Missouri River Bank Stabilization and Navigation Fish and Wildlife Mitigation Project, Reaffirmation Report (Corps 1990). In the WRDA of 1999 (Public Law 106-53) Congress authorized the acquisition and development of an additional 118,650 acres for the Mitigation Project, increasing the total acreage to 166,750 acres. The key recovery initiatives for the MRRP include habitat construction and restoration, hatchery support, flow modification, and an integrated science program that informs an overall adaptive management strategy. The CMP is part of the habitat creation recovery initiative of the MRRP

Cottonwood Management Plan/Programmatic Environmental Assessment Proposed Implementation of a Cottonwood Management Plan Along Six Priority Segments of the Missouri River

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) proposes to preserve existing stands and reestablish new stands of plains cottonwood (Populus deltoides) at selected public/government lands along the Missouri River in accordance with the Cottonwood Management Plan (CMP). The Proposed Action is the implementation of the CMP. The goal of the plan is to be a living document that preserves, creates, or restores cottonwood habitats along the Missouri River and meets the requirements of the USFWS 2003 Amended Biological Opinion (BiOp) concerning the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). The principal immediate focus of the CMP includes measures in the following segments: • Segment 4: Garrison Dam to Lake Oahe Headwaters near Bismarck, North Dakota (RM 1389.9 – RM 1304.0) • Segment 6: Oahe Dam to Big Bend Dam (RM 1072.3 – RM 987.4) • Segment 8: Fort Randall Dam to Niobrara River (RM 880.0 – RM 845.0) • Segment 9: Niobrara River to Lewis & Clark Lake, including the Lake (RM845.0 – RM 811.1) • Segment 10: Gavins Point Dam to Ponca, Nebraska (RM 811.1 – RM 753.0) • Segment 13: Platte River mouth to Kansas City, Missouri (RM 595.5 – RM 367.5) The programmatic Environmental Assessment (EA) evaluated the potential impacts of cottonwood management along the Missouri River; however, site-specific environmental review, in the form of EAs, are anticipated in the future prior to implementation of the techniques suggested in the CMP in any segment