Wetlands Network Summary of Workplans
· Demonstrate possibility of using indicators for long-term monitoring. Wetlands indicators developed during the first year of this project will be assessed to determine their applicability over the long-term.
· Develop scientifically valid set of coastal wetlands sites. Inventories of Great Lakes wetlands by lake and geomorphic setting, and known disturbance level will initially be determined from existing data. The indicator development and refinement process will help guide the selection of study and reference sites for all wetland types in the basin.
· Recommend refinements to basin-wide indicators. Consortium members will focus on refinement of the indicators generated in Year One.
· Manage and maintain small grant/pilot studies funding. The project secretariat, the Great Lakes Commission, will administer seed funding for developing and pursuing pilot studies to support the identification, characterization and assessment of coastal wetland indicators. Indicators selected in Year One activities will provide the basis for continued small grant/pilot study work in the out-years. Products identified within Year One scoping tasks will be developed and integrated into data dissemination through Year Two, Three and beyond.
2) Implement long-term monitoring program. The project will initiate and ensure the sustainability of a scientifically-based monitoring program for coastal wetlands.
3) Scientific support for monitoring. The project will provide seed funding for scientific research and support for monitoring activities.
4) Develop publicly accessible international database. Coastal wetlands data and resultant products will be integrated into the Great Lakes Information Network (GLIN), one of the most broadly accessible, easy-to-use databases in the Great Lakes basin. The coastal wetlands database will also be mirrored on other agency websites.
5) Develop leadership to implement long-term program. Selection of a Project Management Team along with supplementary funds required from this project ensures that participating agencies assume a leadership role in all aspects of project design, conduct, dissemination and institutionalization.
6) Establish a network of funders/agencies to institutionalize monitoring. A network of funders will be established to ensure the implementation of a long-term strategy for ongoing coastal wetlands monitoring.
7) Develop consensus on coastal wetlands sites: site-specific versus basin-wide. The Project Management Team will work toward consensus on how site-specific studies will relate to or be integrated with a basin-wide approach. When comparing site-to-site results, scientifically valid comparisons can be reached that allow for a basin-wide approach to monitoring and reporting on the health of the Great Lakes coastal wetlands.
Regional Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Project (REMAP): Evaluation of the Great Lakes Nearshore Coastal Wetlands – with Emphasis on Development of Watershed Environmental Indicators and Status
Project Overview: The main goal of this project is to establish reference conditions for Great Lakes coastal wetlands and develop and test multimetric indices of biological integrity for wetland plants, invertebrates and fish assemblages. This will determine whether they can be used to assess the health of Great Lakes coastal wetlands. The resource types that are being assessed by this R-EMAP project are coastal wetlands in Lake Michigan, Erie-St. Clair, Huron and Superior. Information obtained from this study will be used by the states in their 305(b) assessments of surface waters for the 2002 reporting period, by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the assessment of 404 and 401 permits, by the U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division in the monitoring of the Great Lakes, and by U.S. EPA, Region 5, in the assessment of watershed indicators and management of Areas of Concern, Remedial Action Plans Stage II and III, and Lakewide Management Plans.
Project Period: January 2000 to June 2002
Objectives
1) Develop indices of biological integrity for biological communities of the coastal wetlands of the Great Lakes using the EMAP sampling design strategy. The development of indicator specific coastal wetland multimetric indices of biological integrity will be developed for plant, macroinvertebrates, and fish communities.
2) Evaluate the differences in biological community expectations due to spatial heterogeneity of the coastal wetlands (among ecoregions, eco-reaches and latitudinal differences). Biological data will be used to evaluate the differences among lakes and regions of the Great Lakes using cluster analysis.
3) Determine whether methods for biological integrity assessments in the Great Lakes can be applied similarly across political boundaries. This project will include the joint participation of federal, state, and academic institutions to assess the nearshore coastal wetlands of the Great Lakes. Data collection efforts will provide comparative and consistent reference condition expectations across a large region for management decisions.
4) Assess the current condition of biological integrity of the near-shore coastal resources of the Great Lakes. Indicators (listed in #1 above) will be used to determine the percentage of each lake’s shoreline that is impaired. These indicators will provide estimates of lake quality for States’ 305(b) reports and for SOLEC.
5) Determine if surface water indicators are acceptable and adequate for coastal wetland resource types. Sampling from a variety of coastal wetland resource types, including from a variety of lake systems (i.e. coolwater, coldwater, and warmwater habitats), will enable evaluation of EMAP indicators for each lake type in Region 5.
The results of this study will advance science in the following manner:
1) Quantifying the statistical acceptability of using the EMAP intensified grid design versus a nonrandom intensive study design for assessment and reference condition calibration in the Great Lakes coastal wetlands.
2) Establishment of consistent reference conditions and the calibration of the multimetric indices (fish, macroinvertebrates, aquatic plants) for the various wetland types of the Great Lakes and ecoregions within lakes.
3) Determine whether or not non-conventional use of the random grid design is an acceptable alternative from current R-EMAP projects.
4) Determine the feasibility of a Great Lakes coastal wetland monitoring effort using the three indicators.
5) Establish reference conditions for each lake and wetland type in the Great Lakes coastal wetlands.
6) Compare results obtained from each indicator to determine the relationship between them.
7) Make comparisons among lakes and wetlands to allow identification of both reference areas and areas of marked degradation.
U.S. EPA STAR Grant Project: Development of Environmental Indicators of Condition, Integrity, and Sustainability in the Great Lakes Basin
Project Overview: This project encompasses a comprehensive cooperative agreement with the U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD) to identify, evaluate, and recommend a portfolio of multi-scaled environmental indicators for the entire U.S. Great Lakes basin. The major question to be addressed is “what environmental indicators can be developed to efficiently, economically, and effectively measure and monitor the condition, integrity, and long-term sustainability of the basin?”
This project is an omnibus proposal which includes the overall framework that links the threats, pressure indicators, and state indicators for the ecosystems of the Great Lakes basin. These indicators are divided into the following components, each represented with supporting subproposals: 1) birds and amphibians, 2) contaminants, 3) diatoms and water quality, 4) fish and macroinvertebrates, and 5) wetlands. These subproposals are linked with broad overlap to insure coordination, integration, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. This main proposal also includes descriptions and essential components common among the supporting proposals including: 1) field sampling design, 2) data gathering and management coordination, and 3) land use and landscape characterization. Project personnel have also requested funding for a separate remote sensing component that will advance knowledge of water level fluctuations and habitat types in both coastal areas and throughout the Great Lakes watershed.
Project Period: October 2000 to September 2004
Objectives
1) Identification of environmental indicators that will be useful to define the condition, integrity, and change of the ecosystems within the basin. The Clean Water Act, especially Sections 305(b) and 303(d), includes essential needs for the rational development of environmental indicators. This includes the need for reporting on the condition, integrity, and trends in the nation’s water resources and for identifying waters that do not meet designated uses and require development of total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) for specific pollutants.
2) Testing these indicators with a rigorous combination of existing data and field data to link stressors of the basin with environmental responses. A suite of state indicators will be used which consist of population, community and landscape-level endpoints that represent a range of spatial and temporal scales. State indicators are the specific ecological responses to the stressors, or pressure indicators, that arise from threats to the environment.
3) Recommendation of a suite of hierarchically structured indicators to guide managers toward informed management decisions. The final product will allow managers to communicate with the public on the condition and integrity of the basin, to guide development of monitoring programs to measure change, to identify areas in need of restoration or conservation strategies, and use of key indicators as input for modeling efforts to predict the future condition and integrity of the basin.
Expected Results and Benefits: The final product will allow managers to communicate with the public on the condition and integrity of the Great Lakes, to guide development of monitoring programs, to identify areas in need of restoration or conservation strategies, and to provide input on key indicators that are or will be incorporated into modeling efforts (e.g. Lake Michigan Mass Balance model) to predict the future condition, integrity, and sustainability of the Great Lakes basin.
To facilitate such communication, the project will engage the existing seven state Sea Grant programs involved in the Great Lakes Sea Grant Network to provide links between the research community and the multi-level management community.
The Wetlands Subproposal
Four wetland plant indicators proposed by SOLEC will be tested:
1) Coastal wetland area by type
2) Gain in restored coastal wetland area by type
3) Presence, absence, and expansion of invasive plants
4) Habitat adjacent to coastal wetlands.
In particular, distribution and abundance of exotic species such as purple loosestrife, reed canary grass, and giant reed grass are important pressure indicators of the Great Lakes. Distribution will be assessed and responses of other wetland plants measured.
Three other indicators defined by SOLEC – coastal wetland area by type, gain in restored wetland area by type, and habitat adjacent to coastal wetlands – will be assessed using remote sensing and existing GIS data, supplemented by ground checking. These data will be analyzed to assess species composition of plants and, especially the presence of species with narrow environmental tolerances. Although the project will use existing data to the extent possible supplemented with available aerial photography, funding of the remote sensing proposal will greatly improve the data resolution with low-level aerial imagery. This would be especially useful to map dominant and invasive plant species.