Researchers Develop Models to Assess Wetland Health

Smithsonian scientists recently reported a promising method of wetland assessment that will help environmental managers quickly take stock of wetlands across an entire watershed. In three papers published in the September 2007 issue of the journal Wetlands, Dennis Whigham, Donald Weller, and Thomas Jordan of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) and their colleagues present the results of a large-scale study that combines field studies and remote-sensing data to assess the ecological functioning of wetlands in a landscape. For this study, the researchers focused on non-tidal wetlands in the Nanticoke River watershed of Maryland and Delaware. 

The researchers based their study on the Hydrogeomorphic (HGM) approach. The HGM Approach is a wetland assessment procedure that first classifies wetlands based on their hydrogeomorphic characteristics (i.e., landscape setting, water source, hydrodynamics); second, it uses reference wetlands to establish the range of functioning of the wetland; and third, it uses a relative index of function, calibrated to reference wetlands, to assess wetland functions. This increases the resolution, allows for replicability, and reduces the amount of time needed to conduct the assessment.  http://www.serc.si.edu/for_media/releases_2007/2007_wetlands.jsp 

Nonpoint Source News Notes, December 2007 http://www.epa.gov/owow/info/NewsNotes/issue83/83issue.pdf