First published in 1985, William deBuys’s Enchantment and Exploitation has become a New Mexico classic. It offers a complete account of the relationship between society and environment in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico, a region unique in its rich combination of ecological and cultural diversity. Now, more than thirty years later, this revised and expanded edition provides a long-awaited assessment of the quality of the journey that New Mexican society has traveled in that time—and continues to travel. In a new final chapter deBuys examines ongoing transformations in the mountains’ natural systems—including, most notably, developments related to wildfires—with significant implications for both the land and the people who depend on it. As the climate absorbs the effects of an industrial society, deBuys argues, we can no longer expect the environmental future to be a reiteration of the environmental past.

In 2006, 2007 and 2010, fish communities, water quality, and physical habitat were sampled at Wilson's Creek, Skegg's Branch (also known as Schuyler Creek), and Terrell Creek to determine the status and long-term trends in fish community composition and to correlate this community data to water quality and habitat conditions.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), a nonregulatory Federal science agency with national scope and responsibilities, is uniquely positioned to serve the Nation's needs in understanding and responding to global change, which includes changes in climate; sea level; land use and land cover; ecosystems; and the global water, carbon, and nitrogen cycles. Global change is among the most challenging and formidable issues confronting our Nation and society. Scientists agree that global environmental changes during this century will have far-reaching societal implications Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007; USGCRP, 2009]. In the face of these complex challenges, the Nation can benefit greatly by using natural science information in decisionmaking.

In 2002, a fine-grained sediment (sand, silt, and clay) monitoring effort was initiated in the Colorado River ecosystem, the river corridor downstream from Glen Canyon Dam, to directly survey channel topography at scales previously unobtainable in this canyon setting. This report presents an overview of the equipment and the methods used to collect and process the high-resolution bathymetric data required for this monitoring effort.

The purpose of this report is to inform the MOU agencies, stakeholders, and the public about the current status and trends of wet nitrogen deposition at RMNP. The MOU agencies will use the information provided in this annual report to make a determination of whether the interim milestones have been achieved in 2013, 2018, 2023, and 2028.

The National Park Service's Arctic Network (ARCN) seeks to understand the natural resources and to detect changes and trends in those resources in five NPS units, including Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Kobuk Valley National Park, Noatak National Preserve, Cape Krusenstern National Monument, and Bering Land Bridge National Preserve (Figure 1).

This document describes the concept, organization, and application of a hierarchical ecosystem classification that integrates saline and tidal freshwater reaches of estuaries in order to characterize the ecosystems of large flood plain rivers that are strongly influenced by riverine and estuarine hydrology. We illustrate the classification by applying it to the Columbia River estuary (Oregon-Washington, USA), a system that extends about 233 river kilometers (rkm) inland from the Pacific Ocean. More than three-quarters of this length is tidal freshwater.

Beaches serve as a natural barrier between the ocean and inland communities, ecosystems, and natural resources. However, these dynamic environments move and change in response to winds, waves, and currents. During extreme storms, such as powerful hurricanes, changes to beaches can be large, and the results are sometimes catastrophic. Lives may be lost, communities destroyed, and millions of dollars spent on rebuilding.

This report summarizes the results of the 2002-2003 inventory of birds, mammals, and herpetofauna, summarizes historic information, and contains brief accounts of each species present or expected to occur in the Whitman Mission National Historic Site (WHMI). Information on species that are possible but unlikely to occur in the mission is also included.

The purpose of this study was to collect baseline water quality information on the Sound and the freshwater brooks flowing into the Sound. A depauperate water quality data base and concern over the potential for increased residential development throughout the Somes Sound watershed were incentives for initiating this study.

This annual report details the status of key indicators of water quality obtained from monitoring that occurred in Whitman Mission National Historic Site (WHMI) in 2009, 2010, and 2011. WHMI natural resource staff monitored Mill Creek in 2009, Doan Creek in 2010, and Mill Creek again in 2011.

During surveys in 2009, we documented seven invasive exotic plant taxa in the Big Spring Pines Natural Area, Chubb Hollow, Long Bay Field and Long Bay at Ozark National Scenic Riverways. All species were known to occur on the park. The most widespread and abundant of the exotic plant species observed included Johnsongrass, ground ivy and Nepalase browntop. Each of these species covered seven or more acres in the park. In general, several invasive exotic plants are a major problem in the study area at Ozark National Scenic Riverways, but successful control is possible for a large group of species. The acreage estimates presented in the report may be used to plan management activities leading to control of exotic plants and the accomplishment of GPRA goal IA1b.

Aquatic invertebrates are an important biomonitoring tool for understanding and detecting changes in ecosystem integrity over time. Therefore, the monitoring objectives of this protocol as described by DeBacker et al. (2005) are: 1) Determine the status and trends of invertebrate species diversity, abundance, and community metrics. 2) Relate invertebrate community to overall water quality through quantification of metrics related to species richness, abundance, diversity, and region-specific multi-metric indices as indicators of water quality and habitat condition.