Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program

Long Term Resource Monitoring

Fact Sheets

Taking the Pulse of a River System: Research on the Upper Mississippi River System

Mark Twain raved about the Mississippi River basin as, “the body of the Nation.” The “upper body,” upstream of the confluence with the Ohio River, includes commercially navigable reaches and branching tributaries that are recreationally and environmentally important. Together they feed and shelter an array of fish and wildlife in their flowing channels, floodplain lakes, backwaters, wetlands, and floodplain forests. Effective river management requires knowledge about factors controlling the dynamics and interactions of important ecosystem components. The Long Term Resource Monitoring Program is the prized diagnostic tool in the Environmental Management Program for the Upper Mississippi River System that provides critical information about the status and trends of key environmental resources.

Download http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2009/3045/ ; 5.15 MB

Taking the Pulse of a River System: First 20 Years - Long Term Resource Monitoring on the Upper Mississippi River System

Long Term Resource Monitoring Program (LTRMP) for the Upper Mississippi River System is the Nation’s first large‑-scale effort to determine the status and trends of these natural components of a large river. The overall health of a river is reflected in the health of its biota, such as (1) fish, (2) invertebrates (e.g., insects, worms, and clams), and (3) aquatic plants. The biota are affected by (4) water quality and (5) sedimentation, which are often influenced by surrounding (6) land use and land cover.

Download http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3098/ ; 4.7 MB

Strategic Plan for the Long Term Resource Monitoring Program on the Upper Mississippi River System, 2010-2014

The Strategic Plan, developed by an interagency partnership, identifies a set of four priority outcomes for 2010-2014. The four outcomes presented in this plan are essential to addressing UMRS information needs, understanding the river ecosystem, and providing knowledge for informed decisions. This effort will provide information needed to guide the LTRMP in the future and to maintain the Upper Mississippi River System as a nationally and internationally significant ecosystem. The Strategic Plan identifies desired outcomes and the associated outputs needed to achieve the outcome.

Download The PDF of the plan summary ; 878 KB

Project Status Reports

As of February 2005, the format for the Project Status Reports was changed to Open-File Reports in the U.S. Geological Survey Report Series.

Project Status Reports are preliminary documents from the Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center (UMESC) and Long Term Resource Monitoring . Their purpose is to provide information and preliminary results of scientific and LTRM activities. Because these reports are only subject to internal peer review, they may not be cited.

• Predicting Future Depth Conditions in Backwaters of the Mississippi River
• Graphical Fish Database Browser for Synthesized Long Term Resource Monitoring Fisheries Data
• Investigation of Remote Sensing Technology for Land Cover Acquisition
• Predicting Flood Potential to Assist Reforestation for the Upper Mississippi River System
• Fish Passage as a Management Goal in the Upper Mississippi River: Results of a Recent Survey
• Asian Carp Invasion of the Upper Mississippi River System
• Native Freshwater Mussels of the Upper Mississippi River System
• Abundance of Age-0 Fishes Correlated with Hydrologic Indicators
• Ecohydrology and Development of Ecological Criteria for Operation of Dams
• Distribution of Wild Rice (Zizania aquatica l.) Before and After the Flood of 1993 in Pool 8 of the Upper Mississippi River
• Suspended Sediment Budgets for Pool 13 and the La Grange Pool of the Upper Mississippi River System
• Recent Sedimentation Rates Behind Constructed Islands in Lake Onalaska, Pool 7, Upper Mississippi River System
• Fish Response to Lowered Summer Water Levels in St. Louis District Pools of the Upper Mississippi River
• Landscape Patterns along the Upper Mississippi River
• A Natural History of the Middle Mississippi River
• Natural History of the Red-Eared Slider Relative to a Variable Hydrologic Regime
• Fish Passage through Dams on the Upper Mississippi River
• Spatial Data Query and Visualization Tool for Analyzing Upper Mississippi River System Data Sets - Beta 2.0 (Revised 2001)
• Vegetation Changes in Backwaters of Navigation Pools 4 and 13 of the Upper Mississippi River, 1975 to 1996
• Forest Response to High Duration and Intensity Flooding along Pool 26 of the Upper Mississippi River
• Agricultural Non-point Pollutant Loading Patterns in Upper Mississippi River Watersheds
• Spatial and Temporal Variability of Channel Catfish Populations in the Upper Mississippi River System
• Assessment of Aerial Photointerpretation for Detecting Submersed Aquatic Vegetation
• Providing On-line Access to Oblique Aerial Photographs of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers and their Floodplains
• An In-situ Sediment Penetrometer for the Characterization of Sediment Type and Bottom Dynamic Conditions
• Conversion of US Army Corps of Engineers Land Cover Data
• Muskrat Harvests, Water Levels, and Aquatic Vegetation on the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge
• Recent Sedimentation Rates in the Finger Lakes Complex of the Upper Mississippi River System
• An Empirical Fingernail Clam Model for Upper Mississippi River Pools 7 and 8
• Presettlement Vegetation Patterns along Navigation Pool 17 of the Upper Mississippi River
• Spatial Patterns of Macroinvertebrates on the Upper Mississippi River System
• A GIS Model for Predicting Winter Habitat Suitability in Backwaters of the Upper Mississippi River
• Watershed Data for the Upper Mississippi River System
• Reconstructing Lake Pepin's Natural History
• Evaluating Agricultural Nonpoint Loadings on Pool 13 from Maquoketa River Watershed, Iowa
• Sediment Budgets for Two Navigation Pools of the Upper Mississippi River System
• Bathymetry Data for the Upper Mississippi River
• Estimating Fetch for Navigation Pools in the Upper Mississippi River Using a Geographical Information System
• Vegetation Response to a Water Level Experiment
• Using Historical Data to Evaluate the Ecological Integrity of the Upper Mississippi River System
• Evaluation of the Hydice Sensor for Mapping Floodplain Vegetation in Navigation Pool 13, Upper Mississippi River System
• Predicting Areas Dewatered and the Likelihood of Success of a Water-level Drawdown in Pool 13
• River Levels and Largemouth Bass Populations in the Illinois River
• Longitudinal Changes in Mississippi River Floodplain Structure
• Estimating Inundation-Induced Tree Mortality Using River Water Level Data
• Fish Movement on the Upper Mississippi River
• Predicting the Effects of Water Level Management Options
• Minor Water Level Changes Important to Winter Habitat in Off-Channel Areas of the Upper Mississippi River
• Spatial Query Tool: Analyzing Long Term Resource Monitoring Program Data Using Geospatial Technology