HNA Summary Report
Introduction

This summary report describes the first Habitat Needs Assessment (HNA), in support of the Upper Mississippi River System Environmental Management Program (EMP). The UMRS-EMP was authorized by Section 1103 of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 1986. The two major parts of the EMP are the Long Term Resource Monitoring Program, and a program of Habitat Rehabilitation and Enhancement Projects.

The authorizing language in WRDA 1986 required an evaluation to determine the program's "effectiveness, strengths and weaknesses, and contain recommendations for the modification and continuance or termination" of the EMP. In response, in 1997, the Corps of Engineers, Mississippi Valley Division submitted a report to Corps Headquarters recommending a variety of changes to the program. One of these recommendations was that a HNA be done when Congress reauthorized the EMP in WRDA 1999, the HNA was recognized as an ongoing feature of the EMP.

Purposes of the Habitat Needs Assessment (HNA) include:
achieve a collaborative planning process that produces technically sound and consensus based results; address a variety of habitat requirements including physical, chemical, and biological parameters; address the unique habitat needs of distinct river reaches and pools; describe historical, existing, and projected future habitat conditions, and identify objectives for future habitat conditions; define habitat needs at system, reach, and pool scales; provide additional tools for planning future Habitat Rehabilitation and Enhancement Projects.
	Finger Lakes Habitat Rehabilitation and Enhancement Project

This HNA is the latest effort to document broad habitat protection and restoration needs to assist in planning future EMP habitat projects. This HNA begins to identify, at the system, reach, and pool scales, the long-term system-wide habitat needs. This HNA can also serve to focus future monitoring and research activities under the reauthorized EMP. Future refinements of this HNA will provide better estimates of habitat need as new information is acquired and additional public input is obtained.