Overview

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Overview

• Background on Strategic Planning
• Relationships between NPS Planning Process and
  IM Program
• Desired future conditions, conceptual models and
• impairment thresholds
• Condition assessment and VS monitoring
• Discussion of our near-term role in development
  of condition assessment approaches and long-term
  strategy to integrate condition assessment with
  VS monitoring

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Park Mission and NPS Mission Goals
NPS Planning Process
General Management Plan Describes long-range
management prescriptions (resource conditions,
visitor experiences, and appropriate types of
management action)

• Resource Stewardship Plan
• Provide quantifiable, measurable objectives
  needed to
• develop management strategies and measure
  success
• of management actions
• Develop parks science strategy to achieve
  maintain
• desired future resource conditions

• Five-year Strategic Plan
• Developed for performance management purposes
  (GPRA)
• Designed to incrementally put into effect
  broadly-defined
• strategies from Resource Stewardship Plan

Detailed Implementation Plans (e.g. Fire
Management Plan, River Management Plan, Cultural
Landscape Management Plant, etc.)
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Mission Goal Ia Natural and cultural resources
and associated values are protected, restored and
maintained in good condition and managed within
their broader ecosystem and cultural context.

• Inventory Goals
• Acquire or develop outstanding baseline
  inventory data sets
• Monitoring Goals
• Status trends in selected indicators of the
  condition of park ecosystems
• Early warning of abnormal condition of
  selected resources
• Data to understand dynamic nature condition
  of selected park ecosystems to provide
  reference points for comparison with other
  altered environments
• Provide data to meet certain legal
  congressional mandates related to natural
• resource protection visitor enjoyment
• Provide a means of measuring progress towards
  performance goals

• Compete assessments of current conditions

Mission Goal Ib The National Park Service
contributes to knowledge about natural and
cultural resources and associated values
management decisions about resources and visitors
are based on adequate scholarly and scientific
information.
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Mission Goal Ib The National Park Service
contributes to knowledge about natural and
cultural resources and associated values
management decisions about resources and visitors
are based on adequate scholarly and scientific
information.
Mission Goal Ia Natural and cultural resources
and associated values are protected, restored and
maintained in good condition and managed within
their broader ecosystem and cultural context.

• Disturbed Lands
• Invasive Exotic Plants
• Federally listed TE Species
• Species of Management Concern
• Invasive Non-native Animals
• Air Quality
• Water Quality Stream Rivers
• Water Quality Lakes, Reservoirs, Estuarine
  Marine Areas
• Water Quantity
• Paleontological Sites
• Cultural Landscapes
• Wilderness Character
• Land Health (wetland, riparian, upland, marine
  coastal areas, mined areas)

• Natural Resource Data Sets
• Archeological Sites Inventory
• Cultural Landscapes Inventory
• Historic Structures Information
• Museum Objects Catalogued
• Ethnographic Resources Information
• Historical Research
• Vital Signs Identified
• Vital Signs Monitored
• Special Management Areas
• National Historic Scenic Trails
• Wilderness Plans

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Mission Goal Ia Natural and cultural
resources and associated values are protected,
restored and maintained in good condition and
managed within their broader ecosystem and
cultural context.
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Land Health Goals

• Standardized basis for measurement of the acreage
  or mileage in a park,
• Documentation of a specific desired condition
  for a resource type in an approved management
• plan, AND
• Knowledge of the current condition of a resource
  type within a park based on objective,
  science-based information.

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Park Planning Process
Information Base
IM Development
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Relationship between NPS Planning Process and
Scientific Information Base
Develop Desired Future Conditions for Park
Resources
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Desired Future Conditions (DFCs)
The desired future condition of a resource type
is an objective description of what the resource
should be like as expressed in an approved
management plan. A park management plan
specifying that a resource type be in pristine
condition is a valid desired condition provided
the physical and biological conditions that
correspond with this condition are known.
The concept is that Resource Stewardship Plans
will provide more detailed and specific DFCs than
General Management Plans Examples ???
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Desired Future Conditions

• The archeological resources of MEVE evolved in
  direct relationship to the quality and diversity
  of available natural resources on the Mesa Verde
  cuesta. Stewardship of the MEVE pinyon-juniper
  communities seeks to achieve a dynamic natural
  mosasic that conserves habitat and community
  conditions and structures, landscape composition
  and configuration, and native species diversity
  as would have prevailed through natural events
  and processes prior to the late 1880s.

• Composition/structure targets
• Ecosystem patches are dominated by characteristic
  native species and include the full range of
  structural/functional groups and native species
  diversity typical of natural pinyon-juniper
  ecosystems
• The MEVE landscape is composed of a mosaic of
  ecosystem patches with mosaic composition
  configuration determined jointly by
  characteristic disturbance processes and
  environmental constraints
• Process targets
• Natural disturbance processes and management
  treatments may be used as tools to facilitate the
  maintenance of desired ecosystems landscape
  conditions

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Montane and Subalpine Terrestrial Ecosystems of
the Southern Colorado Plateau Literature Review
and Conceptual ModelsDr. John VankatProfessor
Emeritus, Miami University, OHSpecial Projects
Ecologist, Grand Canyon National Park, AZ
One Example Mixed Conifer Forest Ecosystem
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BackgroundMixed-Severity Fire Regime
Occasional patchy crowning in dense stands in dry
years
Mostly surface fire
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Ecosystem Dynamics Model of Mixed Conifer Forest
on Dry Sites
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The Structure and Functioning of Dryland
Ecosystems Conceptual Models to Inform the
Vital-Sign Selection ProcessDr. Mark E.
MillerUSGS-BRD, Southwest Biological Sciences
CenterMoab, UT
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Ecological Sites Subdividing the Landscape
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State-and-Transition Models
Cute caricature of nature...
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State-and-Transition Models
Generally describe two kinds of ecological change
--
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Framework for Ecosystem-Management Concepts
Ecosystem health Ecological integrity Sustainabi
lity Desired conditions Acceptable range of
variability Limits of acceptable
change Impairment
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Framework for Rangeland Assessment and Monitoring
The benchmark for rangeland assessments
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Condition Assessment The process of
estimating or judging the condition or functional
status of ecosystems or ecological processes
Monitoring The orderly and quantitative
collection, analysis and interpretation of
resource data to detect trends over time

• Relative condition (in relation to
  desired/reference state, or range of acceptable
  conditions). Assessment can be based on
  quantitative measures, but often emphasis on
  qualitative attributes.
• Generally invalid to compare repeated
  assessments
• Rapid assessment
• Complete census or spatially extensive sampling
  of entire population
• (X of upland acres achieve DFCs)

• Trends in measurable resource attributes or
  indicators of functional status with emphasis on
  quantitative measures
• Repeated measurements are comparable through time
  
• More time intensive
• Spatially limited sampling or monitoring focused
  on selected subset of population

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Soil/Site Stability Hydrologic Function
Integrity of the Biotic Community
Attribute ratings are based upon departure
from ecological site description/ ecological
reference area(s) in these categories.
Extreme Moderate to Extreme
Moderate Slight to Moderate None to Slight
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• 1. Rills 10. Plant community composition
  distribution relative to infiltration
  runoff
• 2. Water flow patterns 11. Compaction layer
• 3. Pedestals and/or terracettes 12.
  Functional/structural groups
• 4. Bare ground 13. Plant mortality/decadence
• 5. Gullies 14. Litter amount
• 6. Wind-scoured, blow-outs /or 15. Annual
  production
• deposition areas 16. Invasive plants
• 7. Litter movement 17. Reproductive capability
  of perennial plants
• 8. Soil surface resistance to erosion
• 9. Soil surface loss or degradation

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Qualitative Condition Assessment
Quantitative Monitoring

• Gap Intercept
• Soil Stability Test
• Soil Compaction Test

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The combination of condition assessment with
vital signs monitoring could provide a powerful
tool for adaptive management.
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Condition Assessment and Vital Signs
Monitoring

• Rapid and qualitative condition assessment
  methods provide broad coverage to give a snapshot
  of current conditions across a park or resource
  category. Generally not appropriate for
  tracking changes in condition through time.

• Quantitative vital signs monitoring provides
  trend data to describe how selected resources or
  functional attributes are changing through time.
  Given funding realities, focused on limited
  resources/issues.

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Condition Assessment and Vital Signs
Monitoring

• Complimentary Efforts
• Monitoring data will provide a better
  understanding of the natural range of variation
  to inform development of desired future
  conditions
• Monitoring data will provide a means of
  validating refining assessment indicators and
  condition classes
• Condition assessment maps may help inform design
  considerations (e.g. What is the population of
  interest? Should unequal probability sampling be
  used?)
• Condition assessment maps will allow post-hoc
  classification for analysis and interpretation of
  vital signs data (How do rates of soil loss
  compare in degraded vs. reference sites? How
  does the response of a tamarisk-invaded riparian
  zone to a flood event differ from that of a
  riparian zone that is dominated by native
  vegetation?)

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Park Planning Process
Information Base
IM Development