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REGIONAL ASSESSMENT OF WETLAND ECOLOGICAL CONDITION -- ISSUES AND CHALLENGES
Citation:
KENTULA, M. E. REGIONAL ASSESSMENT OF WETLAND ECOLOGICAL CONDITION -- ISSUES AND CHALLENGES. Presented at Annual International Meeting of the Society of Wetland Scientist, Sacramento, CA, June 10 - 15, 2007.
Description:
Most work on wetland assessment has focused on the development of methods, however, effective assessment involves more than having a method. In a 2004 review of rapid assessment methods, Fennessey et al. recommended key considerations when adopting existing methods or developing new methods: definition of the assessment unit, wetland classification, assessment of function versus condition, scoring, inclusion of Avalue-added¿ metrics, and validation with comprehensive ecological data. For example, the definition of assessment unit affects sample design, implementation, data quality, and the interpretation and reporting of the results of the assessment. Our recent work has focused on the use of wetland assessment in monitoring for a variety of uses like determining the ambient condition of the wetland resource, prioritizing restoration, and determining the effectiveness of management decisions. This work indicates that sampling and reporting on a Awetland@ as the assessment unit is not easily implemented and generates data that are difficult to report in an ecologically meaningful way. We solved the problems by developing an approach for defining assessment unit that involves sampling and reporting on wetland area.