Groundwater-dependent ecosystems: level I inventory field guide

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This Level I inventory field guide describes a national protocol to supply data used in project identification and planning. Data collected through this field guide serve as the basis for the assessment of project and activity effects on, and the identification of project-level design and mitigation measures for, a specific set of groundwater-dependent ecosystem (GDE) types. This Level I field guide includes procedures for collecting a narrower array of data attributes and less detail for some data attributes than the companion Level II field guide (GTR-WO-86b). This Level I field guide is intended to document the location, size, and basic characteristics of a site during a relatively short 2-hour site visit by a trained field crew. The Level II field guide is intended to more comprehensively characterize the vegetation, hydrology, geology, and soils of GDE sites and typically would require 4 to 8 hours at the field site by a crew of specialists. This Level I field guide describes specific procedures for field data collection for select groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs); however, a number of important activities precede and follow field data collection. In fact, only about one-half of the expected total cost for implementing this field guide is associated with field data collection. The remainder comes from establishing the objectives; selecting an appropriate inventory or monitoring design; training; providing quality assurance and control; providing project administration and data entry; and, most importantly, analyzing and evaluating the information collected. Significant cost savings associated with field data collection can be obtained by spending time “data mining” before the field activities. The recommended sequence of activities for implementing this field guide is represented in figure 3 and described in this section and in appendix 1. Although many different types of GDEs exist, not all are targeted for this field guide. GDEs are ecosystems that are supported by groundwater, which include springs and seeps, cave and karst systems, phreatophytic ecosystems, and, in many cases, rivers, wetlands, and lakes. This field guide was developed to focus on a subset of nonmarine GDEs, specifically springs and groundwater-dependent wetlands (such as fens) as illustrated in figure 2.

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ELECTRONIC FILE - Zoology, ELECTRONIC FILE - Ecology

SWAP (2/19/16) citation:
[FS] US Forest Service. 2012. Groundwater-dependent ecosystems: level I inventory field guide. [place unknown]: US Forest Service. 118 p. Gen. Tech. Rep. WO-86a. [accessed 2016 Jan 06]. http://www.fs.fed.us/sites/default/files/GDE_Level_I_FG_final_March2012_....