This report summarizes data of the Sonoran Desert Network's first three seasons of terrestrial vegetation and soils monitoring in upland areas of the Rincon Mountain District, Saguaro National Park, in southern Arizona. Thirty-nine permanent monitoring sites were sampled, The current report summarizes effort to date, evaluates the sampling design in the context of our monitoring objectives, and suggests modifications to the design.

The U.S. Geological Survey Puget Sound Ecosystem Portfolio Model is a decisions-support tool that uses scenarios to evaluate where, when, and to what extend future population growth, urban growth, and shoreline development may threaten the Puget Sound nearshore environment.

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.

This abstract describes the Final Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Congress, recognizing the degradation of this unique ecosystem due to direct physical impacts and indirect impact, passed the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and Protection Act of 1990 designating the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

This monograph provides a comprehensive overview of fundamental scientific insights into the geographical features of a country which was and still is in the centre of the geopolitical battle of the large world powers and especially neighboring countries. The book presents the scientifically proven reserves of individual resources such as: mineral riches, land, forests, flora and fauna, water and climate features, to the extent needed, through statistical indicators and geographic maps. The authors point to features and specifics of the existing interdependence of economic and political development and impact of natural resources on spatial development which can be useful for potential investors, spatial planers, decision makers, politicians, geographers, students, large Bosnian diaspora and anyone interested in area of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This book fills the gap in geographical literature on Bosnia and Herzegovina in the English language. The monograph appeals to researchers and scholars of all levels in the fields of geography, geopolitics, history and related fields and everyone interested in this country between East and West.

This report summarizes the Sonoran Desert Network's first season of terrestrial vegetation and soils monitoring at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument (NM), in south-central Arizona.

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.

This is an all-encompassing look at the Earth: how it was formed and how it works. It explores the emerging geological research and explains how new advances in the understanding of plate tectonics, seismology, and satellite imagery have enabled us to begin to see the Earth for what it is, a dynamic and ever changing planet. It introduces the concepts of plate tectonics, continental drift, the earth's structure, sea floor spreading, the relationship between the atmosphere and the oceans, and how mountains are formed.

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).

To better understand the native, non-native and restored plant community dynamics at WHMI the NPS Vegetation Inventory Program (NVIP) funded a vegetation inventory and mapping project in 2006 as part of the larger Upper Columbia Basin Inventory and Monitoring Network (UCBN) network-wide inventory program. The authors' detail the findings of the Vegetation Inventory Project at Whitman Mission National Historic Site

This report presents the conceptual ecological models describing the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems for park units in the Eastern Rivers and Mountains Network (ERMN, see Table 1). These models have been developed to support the National Park Service's (NPS) Inventory and Monitoring Program (I&M Program) in this region, and in particular, to complement the identification of "vital signs" that will be used in long-term monitoring of park resources.

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 aim of this project was to create a vegetation map at the National Vegetation Classification alliance level or finer, with a minimum mapping unit of 0.5 hectares, thematic accuracy of 80% or better per map class, and spatial accuracy meeting U.S. National Map Accuracy Standards.

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.

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.

The authors conducted a second year of invasive plant surveys at Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial. This allowed a comparison of invasive plant species found in 2006 to those found in 2011. their findings are detailed in this publication.

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.

The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (SLBE) vegetation mapping project is an initiative of the National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Inventory Program (VIP), with cooperative support from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Vegetation Characterization Program (VCP) to classify and map plant communities of SLBE. The goals of the project are to adequately describe and map plant communities of SLBE and its immediate surroundings and to provide the NPS Natural Resource Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Program, resource managers, and biological researchers with useful baseline vegetation information.

The Natural Resource Publication series addresses natural resource topics that are of interest and applicability to a broad readership in the National Park Service and to others in the management of natural resources, including the scientific community, the public, and the NPS conservation and environmental constituencies. Manuscripts are peer-reviewed to ensure that the information is scientifically credible, technically accurate, appropriately written for the intended audience, and is designed and published in a professional manner.

Few of us will ever get to Antarctica. The bitter cold and three months a year without sunlight makes the sixth continent virtually uninhabitable for humans. Yet marine biologist James B. McClintock has spent three decades studying the frozen land in order to understand better the world that lies beneath it. In this luminous and closely observed account, one of the world's leading experts on Antarctica introduces the reader to this fascinating world - the extraordinary wildlife that persists despite the harsh conditions and the way each of the pieces fit into the puzzle of the intricate environment: from single-celled organisms to baleen whales, with leopard seals, penguins, 50-foot algae, sea spiders, coral, and multicolored sea stars, in between. Now, as temperatures rise, the fragile ecosystem is under attack. Adelie penguins that have successfully nested on Antarctic islands for several hundred years have been nearly wiped out. King crabs that used to populate the deep seafloor are moving into shallower waters, disturbing the set order of life there. Lost Antarctica is an appeal to understand and appreciate the wondrous place at the bottom of the world that we are on the brink of losing.

The National Park Service initiated a restoration project at Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site to restore the historic turning basin and wetland area adjacent to the Saugus River in 2007. To fulfill regulatory requirements and enhance understanding of freshwater wetland restoration practices, an intensive, pre- and post-restoration monitoring program was implemented. This report summarizes monitoring data collected prior to the restoration and the first year (2008) after restoration. Data summaries included in this report describe the status of biotic (e.g., vegetation, nekton, avian, benthic invertebrate, and vegetation communities) and abiotic parameters (e.g., tidal hydrology, river geomorphology, sediment, and water quality). This is first of several monitoring reports associated with the restoration of the turning basin and wetlands at Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site.

The National Park Service, Natural Resource Stewardship and Science office in Fort Collins, Colorado publishes a range of reports that address natural resource topics of interest and applicability to a broad audience in the National Park Service and others in natural resource management, including scientists, conservation and environmental constituencies, and the public.

This report summarizes results of the Sonoran Desert Network's first season of terrestrial vegetation and soils monitoring in upland areas of Fort Bowie National Historic Site (NHS), in southeastern Arizona. Ten permanent field-monitoring sites were established and sampled in 2008. Our objectives were to determine the status of and detect trends, over five-year intervals, in vegetation cover, frequency, soil cover, and surface soil stability.