This section of the Annual Work Plan contains a brief description of additional work items that could be undertaken should additional funds become available during the fiscal year. Because existing resources are restricted and additional funding is uncertain, detailed descriptions of candidate work efforts will be developed only if additional funding becomes available. The work efforts described reflect prioritization input by the Long Term Resource Monitoring Program (LTRMP) Analysis Team and Environmental Management Technical Center (EMTC) staff based on one or more of the factors and criteria influencing possible LTRMP work efforts as reflected in Figure 1 of the Annual Work Plan. This list represents last year's overtarget capabilities. Completed or initiated items were dropped from the list. The remaining capabilities were renumbered in the same sequence.
Item 1--Floodplain Elevation Mapping
at Selected Sites within the Upper Mississippi River System (UMRS)
Background: The LTRMP has completed bathymetric databases for Pools 4, 8, 13, and 26 and has collected additional data in La Grange Pool, the Open River reach, and other selected areas (e.g., Habitat Rehabilitation and Enhancement Project [HREP] sites). Because bathymetric data are restricted to areas that are aquatic at low water conditions, these data have limited use. A floodplain elevation database would allow investigations at high discharge conditions and would be critical to assessments of water management alternatives. Collection of such data has traditionally required extensive land surveys that would exceed the effort expended to obtain existing LTRMP bathymetric data. However, new survey-grade Global Positioning System (GPS) technology may provide an efficient means of collecting floodplain elevation data.
Objective: Begin collecting floodplain elevation data in Pool 8 to assess the current methodology and costs for future expansion of this work.
Work Schedule and Budget: If funded, all work under this proposal would be completed by September 30, 1997. A contractor would be hired to demonstrate fast, high-resolution survey-grade GPS gear and to acquire elevation data for Pool 4. Cost: $75.0K
Item 2--Plan, Design, and Test Innovative
Ecosystem Management Techniques for Maintaining and Restoring Large River-Floodplain
Ecosystems
In cooperation with Federal, State, and nongovernmental partners, plan, design, and test innovative broad-scale management techniques for maintaining and restoring large river-floodplain ecosystems.
Background: Existing habitat rehabilitation projects undertaken by Federal, State, and private resource management groups have focused on structural projects that are expensive to build and to maintain in relation to the amount of rehabilitated habitat within the entire UMRS. Available monitoring information indicates that some of these projects will be short-lived at best.
Objective: The EMTC has an unique role to play as a catalyst to help the HREP program evolve into a more effective and cost-efficient management program based on a holistic river perspective. The key to attaining this objective is to look at problems at the appropriate scale (watershed, river-floodplain corridor, river reach, subreach, habitat) and to consider nonstructural as well as structural solutions. For example, the EMTC and its Federal and State partners have already begun looking at alternative dam operating procedures (Pool 25 analysis) that would restore a more natural flood pulse while not impeding navigation. Altering flow velocities, seed islands, the use of routine operation and maintenance capabilities, and the use of bladders are also being considered. If funded, initial project implementation will occur in FY 1998.
Work Schedule and Budget: Identified work would be completed by December 31, 1998. Costs: LTRMP--$25.0K, HREP--$175.0K
Item 3--Investigation of Models
to Predict Future Sediment Loading Patterns to the Main Stem of the UMRS
Background: In FY 1997, EMTC staff may obtain funding to initiate spatial analysis and mapping of sediment loads to the main stem of the Upper Mississippi River System from its major tributaries. This is meant to be the first phase of a longer project that will eventually lead to predictions of future sediment loading rates. After the available data are summarized and initial maps produced, a workshop is needed to provide a forum for managers and scientists to discuss needed predictions, especially their spatial scales, available models, types of model output, and levels of confidence required. Also, we will identify the appropriate roles of the EMTC (with GIS capabilities) and the U.S. Geological Survey (with hydrologic and sediment transport expertise).
Objective: Organize and conduct a workshop to determine the most appropriate models for predicting future sediment loading rates and patterns of the UMRS.
Work Schedule and Budget: In mid-FY 1997, workshop participants will be notified, an agenda will be prepared, and available data and potential models will be reviewed. Late in FY 1997, the workshop will be conducted and a summary report with recommendations completed. Cost: $40.0K
Item 4--Evaluate the Potential of
Expanding Monitoring Activities Beyond the Key Pools (with the Use of Stratified
Random Sampling)
Background: The LTRMP conducts standardized resource component monitoring in six key LTRMP study reaches. The question has been raised repeatedly whether monitoring data are also needed from the intervening river segments. Although the perceived need for such data is a conceptual management issue, additional analysis would help resolve the issue. The LTRMP is operating on funding that is fixed through time. Therefore, any extension of LTRMP monitoring to new areas will require either reduction of monitoring in the key LTRMP study reaches or contributions of data by other agencies that might be willing to adopt LTRMP sampling protocols for their own related ongoing work. Assuming that extension can be accomplished only by reduction of intensity in the key LTRMP study reaches, analyses of precision at varying levels of sampling effort would provide quantitative assessment of the amounts of information gained by the extensions and lost through reductions in intensity. This information would be critical to making an informed decision on how to proceed.
Objective: Use existing data on key parameters from LTRMP monitoring to assess the precision lost by reducing sampling effort in existing key study reaches and projecting the precision of estimates that might be obtained from extending sampling elsewhere. The assessment will also include appraisals of undesirable effects that might result from attempts to estimate systemwide trends if that system consists of heterogeneous reaches rather than behaving as a single homogeneous system. Additional funding would allow analyses to be accelerated (by contract) into FY 1997.
Work Schedule and Budget: Design analyses for contractor execution. All work for acceleration under this proposal will be completed by September 30, 1997. Cost: $60.0K
Item 5--Analysis of Habitat Needs
on the UMRS
Background: Construction of spatial databases that describe the past and present aquatic and terrestrial geomorphic features of the UMRS are ongoing efforts under the LTRMP (Laustrup and Lowenberg 1994; the present Annual Work Plan). Evaluation of these databases in coordination with LTRMP management agency Partners is required to define habitat objectives for individual river reaches. HREPs to date have been evaluated mostly from the perspective of single-project benefits at local area scales. Systemic evaluation is needed to establish guidelines that can help identify the types of HREPs that will likely provide the most cost-effective ecological benefits to the entire UMRS.
A pilot effort to develop an ecosystem management strategy for Pool 13 has been initiated under the auspices of the Upper Mississippi River Conservation Committee. This pilot effort has included examples of how habitat needs can be expressed for a large floodplain area. Similar efforts are already under way for three other UMRS reaches.
Objective: Initiate an evaluation of UMRS habitat needs.
Work Schedule and Budget: Available spatial databases will be reviewed to determine their potential value in producing the Habitat Needs Report. Previous analyses of UMRS geomorphic and landscape changes will be summarized. Two workshops will be held to acquaint field-level managers with the available data, analyses, options for expressing quantifiable habitat objectives, and remaining spatial data requirements to cover the entire UMRS. A schedule for writing the Habitat Needs Report in support of the Environmental Management Program Report to Congress will be developed. Cost: $60.0K
Item 6--Develop an Aquatic Vegetation
Succession Model for the UMRS
Background: Aquatic vegetation within the UMRS is highly dynamic. As judged by our observations at individual sites, the change from one to another type of vegetation is more a stochastic process than a determinate process. If we assume the collective behavior of the aquatic vegetation at a river reach is the net result of the stochastic processes driven by a few driving forces of the physical environment, then the change may be simulated by a Markovian-chain model based on field investigations at randomly selected sites.
Objective: Explore the predictability of the aquatic vegetation at Pool 8 using Markovian-chain models.
Work Schedule Budget: All work under this proposal will be completed by December 31, 1997. Cost: $42.0K
Item 7--Land Cover Mapping of UMRS
Corridor
Background: Historical geographic information system (GIS) maps of the UMRS floodplain would provide the baseline data necessary for resource managers to best evaluate the ecological integrity of the present floodplain and analyze trends within the UMRS. Apart from analyses of the entire UMRS, evaluations of presettlement and present land cover of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuge system and State conservation areas will help evaluate the ecological integrity of these important landscapes, as well as provide information needed to assist resource managers in formulating and implementing ecosystem management plans. Presently, resource managers are unable to answer the key question in restoration or ecosystem management: Restoration or ecosystem management to what condition or preexisting state?
Objective: The General Land Office (GLO) began the first public land surveys of the UMRS in 1809. The GLO survey crews divided the landscape into square grids of townships and sections. Each township plat map shows the extent of prairies, marshlands, forests, barrens, rivers, tributaries, lakes, and streams, as well as any unusual features. Producing accurate GIS land cover maps from plat maps is possible because the original township and section lines are represented on both the modern U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) quadrangle maps and the GLO plat maps. The information will be transferred and digitized to create GIS coverages.
The Mississippi River Commission (MRC) completed a detailed mapping of land cover during a survey conducted in the late 1890s, and the EMTC has previously generated GIS databases of landcover from these maps. These GIS databases have provided a base for comparison of pre- and postimpoundment by construction of lock and dams on the UMRS in the 1930s. The effort here would be to complete the automation of the MRC maps for the entire UMRS. Completion of the MRC databases would provide a means of comparing and analyzing pre- and postimpoundment land cover changes for the entire UMRS.
The EMTC is in the process of completing the automation of 1989 aerial photography to develop a GIS land cover database for the entire UMRS. Several pools on the main stem of the river will be completed under this item, thus providing researchers and managers with a time series of land cover databases for the UMRS. In addition, a land-water interface GIS coverage from 1989 aerial photos will be developed.
Work Schedule and Budget: Land-water interface GIS coverage from 1989 aerial photos by June 30, 1996. All other work will be completed by October 1, 1997. Cost: $180.0K
Item 8--Initial Biological Validation
of Spatial Predictions of Floodplain Habitat Availability to Overwintering
Fish
Background: Work is under way to develop a simple, rule-based GIS model that predicts the occurrence of habitat for overwintering centrarchids and other thermally sensitive fishes in Pool 8 (Task 1.3.2.4, Substrategy 2, Work Unit G), and to validate that preliminary model based on physical characteristics of backwaters in winter (Task 1.3.2.4, Substrategy 2, Work Unit H). Validation of the model based on biological responses (e.g., the distribution of overwintering fishes) is also needed before this model can be used with confidence in Pool 8 and tested for use elsewhere. This biological validation would use hydroacoustic surveys and limited capture sampling to map the distribution of overwintering fishes. These data would then be used to evaluate the predictive ability of the rule-based GIS model. Sampling during two winters may be required.
Objective: Acquire digital side-scan hydroacoustic survey gear and survey fish distribution in Pool 8 backwaters selected to test the rule-based GIS habitat model, and begin testing that model. The window of opportunity for initiation of this work is winter 1997-1998.
Work Schedule and Budget: All work done under this proposal for initial validation of spatial predictions will be completed by September 30, 1997. However, additional data, particularly from other LTRMP study reaches, will be needed, and these data would have to be obtained after FY 1996. Data would be collected about from March through June 1997 for this initial validation of spatial predictions in Pool 8. Cost: $50.0K