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Highlights and overview of the 2011 National Wetland Condition Assessment (NWCA) and upcoming 2016 NWCA
Citation:
Kentula, M. Highlights and overview of the 2011 National Wetland Condition Assessment (NWCA) and upcoming 2016 NWCA. Socieity of Wetland Scientists Webinar, NA, September 15, 2016.
Impact/Purpose:
The first National Wetland Condition Assessment (NWCA) was completed in 2011 and the results will be released to the public in 2016. A team of scientists from ORD played a major role in designing the survey, analyzing the data, and reporting on the results of the assessment in cooperation with the Office of Water. The analysis team also developed quantitative national and regional definitions of reference in terms of least disturbed condition. This presentation provides a summary of the major results, examples of their utility to resource management and implications to wetland policy. About 50% of the wetland area nationally was found to be in good biological condition while about 30% was in poor condition. The stressors with the greatest areal extent nationally were vegetation removal, hardening (e.g., roads, paths, extreme soil compaction), and ditching. A relative risk analysis indicated a strong relationship between high levels of nearly all the stressors measured (i.e., vegetation removal, hardening, ditching, damming, filling/erosion, and vegetation replacement) and poor biological condition. These results and the associated data can be used by researchers in a number of ways, e.g., as a context for evaluating the results of smaller scale assessments, to focus research on stressors tied to poor condition. In terms of the national No Net Loss Policy, the 2011 NWCA results set a benchmark against which trends in wetland quality can be quantified. This research also contributes to work being done under SSWR task 3.01A, subtask 1.1.
Description:
This presentation is for a webinar sponsored by the Society of Wetland Scientists. It is tailored to a technical audience with research interests in wetland ecology and management. The talk will introduce the National Aquatic Resource Surveys and then transition to a discussion of the methods, results, and applications of the National Wetland Condition Assessment. It is tailored