{"id":3505,"date":"2012-12-20T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-20T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/new-report-assessment-of-wetland-condition-on-the-rio-grande-national-forest\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T13:39:46","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T20:39:46","slug":"new-report-assessment-of-wetland-condition-on-the-rio-grande-national-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/2012\/12\/20\/new-report-assessment-of-wetland-condition-on-the-rio-grande-national-forest\/","title":{"rendered":"New Report: Assessment of Wetland Condition on the Rio Grande National Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\nCNHP Wetland Ecologist Joanna Lemly recently completed work
\non a project to characterize and assess the condition of wetlands on the RioGrande National Forest<\/a> (RGNF) in south central Colorado. The project was
\ncarried out in conjunction with CNHP\u2019s first river basin scale wetland
\nassessment in the Rio Grande Headwaters River Basin. <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\nHeadwater wetlands in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of the
\nRGNF.<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\nBetween 2008 and 2011, CNHP partnered with Colorado Parks and Wildlife<\/a> (CPW) on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funded
\neffort to map and assess the condition of wetlands throughout the Rio Grande
\nHeadwaters River Basin, which includes the RGNF. Existing paper maps of
\nwetlands created by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)\u2019s National WetlandInventory<\/a> (NWI) program were converted to digital data
\nby GIS Analysts at CPW. In
\naddition to the mapping, 137 wetlands were surveyed across the Rio Grande
\nHeadwaters basin using condition assessment methods developed at CNHP over the
\npast decade. Of the wetlands surveyed, 52 were located on the RGNF in 10
\ndifferent watersheds. To supplement the EPA-funded study, the U.S. ForestService<\/a> (USFS) provided funding through a Challenge Cost Share Agreement for
\nadditional wetland sampling on the RGNF to develop more comprehensive
\ninformation about the types, abundances, distribution, and condition of the
\nForest\u2019s wetlands. Through the agreement, 25 additional wetlands on the RGNF
\nwere surveyed and all data from the RGNF were summarized.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\nField crew members sampling a fen wetlands on the RGNF.<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\n  Based on digitized NWI mapping, we now know the following
\nfacts about wetlands on the RGNF:<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n

\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>There are 42,862 acres of wetlands and water
\nbodies within the RGNF.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>Lakes and rivers comprise 4,687 acres or 11%.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>Wetlands and water bodies represents
\napproximately 2% of the total land area in the RGNF.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>Slightly over half (55%) of NWI mapped acres are
\nfreshwater herbaceous wetlands.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>Shrub wetlands make up another 30%.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>When broken down by hydrologic regime, saturated
\nwetlands are the most common, comprising 73% of NWI acres.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>Within the RGNF, 82% of all lakes are mapped
\nwith a dammed\/impounded modifier, indicating that most lakes are reservoirs of
\none kind or another.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>Beavers influence only 4% of all wetland acres,
\nbut 23% of ponds are mapped as beaver ponds and 6% of shrub wetlands are mapped
\nwith beaver influence.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>65% of all NWI acres occur in the subalpine
\necoregions, which make up roughly the same proportion of the Forest\u2019s land
\narea.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>Another 29% of NWI acres occur in the alpine
\nzone. Lower elevation zones contain very few wetland acres.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\nDown cutting of a small stream observed near a wetland in
\nthe Rio de los Pinos watershed of the RGNF.<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\n
Field surveys resulted in additional information about RGNF
\nwetlands.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n

\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>In total, 77 wetland sites were surveyed across
\nthe RGNF, including 30 riparian shrublands, 27 wet meadows, 17 fens, two
\nriparian woodlands, and one marsh.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>Nearly 500 plant taxa were encountered during
\nthe surveys, including 445 identified to the species level.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>Of the 445 identified to species level, 420
\n(94%) were native species and 25 were non-native species.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>Noxious weeds, an aggressive subset of
\nnon-natives, were present in only four plots.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>Wetland condition measures indicate that
\nwetlands on the RGNF are in excellent to good condition.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>Floristic quality assessment indices were high
\nfor most wetlands, though did vary by both elevation and wetland type.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>Multi-metric Ecological Integrity Assessment
\n(EIA) scores rated most wetlands with an A- or B-rank, indicating that wetlands
\nwere either in reference condition or deviated only slightly from reference
\ncondition.<\/span>
\n\u00b7       
\n<\/span><\/span>A handful of wetlands received C-ranks, due to
\nstressors including grazing, hydrologic modifications, and surrounding land
\nuse.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n In conclusion, the RGNF contains thousands of acres of high
\nquality wetlands that provide essential services to the Forest and lands
\ndownstream. This study, in conjunction with others carried out by CNHP over the
\npast two decades, provides the RGNF with detailed information on specific
\nwetlands throughout the RGNF along with generalize conclusion on the extent,
\ndistribution, and condition of wetlands. This information can be used for a
\nvariety of management purposes.\u2003<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CNHP Wetland Ecologist Joanna Lemly recently completed work on a project to characterize and assess the condition of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,22,32,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ecology","category-friends-and-partners","category-national-forest","category-wetlands","entry","override"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}