NE Indiana bottomland restoration vegetation, soils and carbon data, 2015 and 2016

Publication Date

2019-07-26

Start Date

2015-07-14

End Date

2016-08-07

Struckhoff, M.A., Grabner, K.W., Albers, J.A., Westrich, D.J., and Hooper, M.J., 2019, NE Indiana bottomland restoration vegetation, soils and carbon data, 2015 and 2016: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/F7FT8JZ4.

The Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration (NRDAR) Program provides a process to assess injury to natural resources due to contaminant release into the environment and implement restoration actions to recover resources and services lost due to the contaminant release. Restorations can be implemented on the affected area (primary restoration), or can occur at off site locations to offset local effects of the contaminant release (compensatory restoration). The cost of restoration actions can range from many thousands to many millions of dollars. Monitoring of restored sites is crucial to ensuring that these dollars are being well spent and that restorations are achieving their stated goals. Monitoring can assess the degree to which restorations have progressed 1) away from conditions prior to implementation and 2) toward restoration targets. Additionally, monitoring can help identify if restorations are progressing as expected, or if adaptive management actions are needed to achieve management goals. However, monitoring frequently consumes limited resources that could otherwise be used to implement additional restoration actions, and therefore is frequently implemented as an afterthought or not at all. In order to provide restoration practitioners with monitoring tools that are appropriate for restoration project goals and objectives, we assessed the current state of restorations at four sites in northeast Indiana using a variety of methods across multiple taxa: plants, birds, mammals, herptofauna and invertebrates. Our research had 5 primary goals: 1. assess the current state of restored areas relative to starting conditions 2. assess the current state of restorations relative to restoration goals and objectives 3. identify whether or not adaptive management actions were necessary to correct developing problems at any of the sites 4. assess the relative efficacy of data collection methods for a variety of restoration monitoring goals 5. identify low-cost monitoring options appropriate for monitoring objectives Research also included an assessment of human use of restored areas.

• Columbia Environmental Research Center (CERC)
• USGS Data Release Products

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