The Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) for Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) and Grulla NWR will serve as a management tool to be used by the refuge staff and its partners in the preservation and restoration of the ecosystem's natural resources. In that regard, the plan will guide management decisions over the next 15 years and set forth strategies for achieving refuge goals and objectives within that time frame. The results of the planning process are represented within this document. Management actions identified within this document reflect a need to achieve a number of refuge goals that are supported by measurable objectives and specific implementation strategies.

The Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (PIRO) 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 PIRO. The goals of the project are to adequately describe and map plant communities of PIRO and 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 purpose of this publication is to report the findings of the Service's wetlands inventory of New Jersey and to summarize existing information on New Jersey's wetlands. The chapters will include discussions of wetland concept and classification; National Wetlands Inventory techniques and results; wetland formation and hydrology; hydric soils, wetland vegetation and plant communities; wetland values; wetland trends; and wetland protection. The appendix contains a list of plants found in NJ's wetlands. A figure showing the general distribution of NJ's wetlands and deepwater habitats is provided.

This report covers the mid-1970'2 to the mid-1980's, a period in which Federal, State, and local government programs and policies began to affect wetland use and conversion. For this reason, there has been intense interest by the scientific and governmental communities in these updated wetlands statistics. Although the data contained in this report generally predates more recent wetlands legislation, they provide information that can help to assess the effectiveness of public policies and programs that have been intended to reduce the loss of the Nation's remaining wetlands.

The main purpose of this report is to document how wetlands in the Meadowlands area changed from the 1950s to the 1990s. The emphasis is on quantitative changes (i.e., changes in extent; acreage) and not on qualitative changes in wetlands. The report also presents other information that provides a valuable perspective on these and prior changes.

The report is organized into the following sections: Study Area, Methods, General Scope and Limitations of the Study, Appropriate Use of this Report, Rationale for Preliminary Functional Assessments, Results, Conclusions, Acknowledgments, and References. Two appendices provide keys to hydrogeomorphic wetland classification and the functional assessment findings for subbasins. Thematic maps are contained in a separate folder on the CD version of this report.

This book details The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especial;y as Waterfowl Habitat - also known as the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

During 2006 through 2009 the National Park Service Great Lakes Inventory and Monitoring Network and its partners assessed levels of targeted environmental contaminants in bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) nestlings at sites in and adjacent to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, and St. Croix National Scenic Riverway.

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.

The U.S. Geological Survey and the USDA Forest Service partnered to co-host a symposium on "Planning for Biodiversity: Bringing Research and Management Together," held February 29-March 2, 2000 at the Kellogg West Conference Center, California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, California. The goal of the 3-day conference was to identify the current status of our knowledge and gaps in our understanding of regional biodiversity and ecosystem processes, present and future threats to species and habitats, and effective monitoring strategies for southwestern and central coastal California resources. Through a program of 52 invited presentations, 18 contributed posters, and 10 focused discussion groups, the conference created an environment for formal and informal communication among the 300 attendees about the results of scientific studies and their application to resource conservation and management, as well as the information needs of managers responsible for determining and implementing management on the ground. Of the 45 technical papers presented at the conference, 14 are included in this volume. Authors were asked to synthesize the current state of knowledge regarding their topic and identify areas needing future research. Each paper was assigned to an editor for review and received one to three additional peer reviews. Expanded abstracts of nine posters also were reviewed by the editors and included. The topics addressed in the papers and poster abstracts reflect the breadth of the conference presentations and the issues facing the science and management communities, ranging from the threats of fire, air pollution, grazing, exotic species invasion, and habitat loss on native habitats and sensitive species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, to the role of mycorrhizal fungi as indicators of biological change.

This report summarizes provisional data collected by the Sonoran Desert Network during the first two seasons of terrestrial vegetation and soils monitoring in upland areas of the Rincon Mountain District of Saguaro National Park, in southern Arizona. Twenty-five permanent monitoring sites were sampled. This report summarizes effort to date, evaluates the sampling design in the context of our monitoring objectives, and suggests modifications to the design.

This report summarizes current National Wetlands Inventory (NW)I data for each state from Maine through Virginia and the District of Columbia.

This report summarizes the results of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's findings, with emphasis on the wetlands associated with the islands in the designated Boston Harbor Islands NRA. Generalized wetland maps are included in this publication. More detailed map information can be obtained from the NWI website (http: //wetlands.fws.gov) where NWI digital map data can be downloaded for GIS applications or data can be directly viewed through the "interactive mapper tool."

This report is one in a series of community profiles whose objective is to synthesize extant literature for specific wetland habitats into definitive, yet handy ecological references. This report details not only the biology of floodplains but also the geomorphological and hydrological components and processes that are operating on various scales.

This report summarizes results of the Sonoran Desert Network's first season of terrestrial vegetation and soils monitoring in upland areas of Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument (NM), in southwestern New Mexico. Ten permanent field-monitoring sites were established and sampled in 2009. Our objectives were to determine the status of and detect trends, over five-year intervals, in vegetation cover, vegetation frequency, soil cover, and surface soil stability.

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.

We are in the grip of global warming: sea levels are rising; glaciers are melting, Arctic sea ice is thinning, meteorological events are becoming more extreme. But how do these changes compare with the environmental changes that have occurred in the past? How can they be put into perspective? What can we learn from the past to help us better understand how natural and human factors may interact to change our climate and environment in the future? Global Environments through the Quaternary delves into the environmental changes that have taken place during the Quaternary: the last 2.6 million years of geological history and time during which humans have evolved and spread across the Earth. Taking the reader through the Pleistocene and the Holocene, the book describes the evidence that has helped us to characterize environmental changes during these two epochs; it then explores the changes captured by more recent meteorological records in the period up to the present day. Throughout, it aims to convey the relevance of palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic studies to current environmental and climatic concerns. Climate change research foretells of potentially catastrophic consequences in the future and, even now, early indicators of those changes are evident in the retreating Greenland ice sheet, melting permafrost, changes in fish distributions in northern waters, and more besides. The book examines changes to the physical environment throughout the Quaternary, putting current concerns into perspective, and closes with a discussion of the causes of climatic and environmental change over different timescales - and the complex interactions between human impacts and natural processes. With climate change - itself but part of the perpetual process of environmental change - as important a topic of debate now as at any other time, Global Environments through the Quaternary is essential reading for any student seeking a balanced, objective overview of this truly interdisciplinary subject. Online Resource Centre The Online Resource Centre to accompany Global Environments through the Quaternary features: For students: * Links to external sources of useful information For registered adopters of the book: * Figures from the book, available to download

South Asia, harboring the complex Himalayan terrains, has over one-fifth of the world's population and is recognized as the most hazard-prone region of the world. The exponential increase in population with the consequent pressure on natural resources and continued high rates of poverty and food insecurity also makes this region the most vulnerable region to hazards in the world as far as the impacts of climate change are concerned. Over the last century, the climatic trends in South-Asia have been observed to be characterized by increasing air temperatures and an increasing trend in the intensity and frequency of extreme events. IPCC (2014) has reported that the Himalayan highlands shall face significant warming over the next century. The increasing frequency of natural hazards due to the impacts of climate change in the Himalayas calls for efficient management and policymaking in these regions, which can only be implemented by the local governments through an established science-based robust action plan. This edited volume focuses on the management of natural hazards using innovative techniques of spatial information sciences and satellite remote sensing. It contains chapters from eminent researchers and experts in the field of hazard management, remote sensing, and GIS. The primary focus of this book is to replenish the gap in the available literature on the subject by bringing the concepts, theories, and practical experiences of the specialists and professionals in this field together in one volume to help students, researchers, and policymakers to address issues concerning management and policy implications of natural hazards in the complex Himalayan region.

This document presents the programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary Final Plan Management. It is a useful tool to understand the environmental consequences of th broad range of activities in the management plan and provides the general analyses that informed the decision of approving the plan. It also establishes that as individual actions become ripe for decision, alternatives will be evaluated under the NEPA to meet the broader goals outlined in this final management plan.

This document describes the rationale and methods used by the National Park Service (NPS) Northeast Temperate Network (NETN) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuges (MCI) for long-term monitoring of rocky intertidal habitats. The monitoring effort will collect data for key metrics representing the ecological health of the intertidal zone, and over time it will provide an indication of the trend of these metrics.

Students taking undergraduate degrees in geography, ecology, earth science, and environmental science frequently take an introductory unit in Physical Geography. Some will have not done any geography since their early teens, while others have more recent knowledge. This range of backgrounds can be challenging for both the instructor and the student, this primer aims to help. A primer is a readable introduction to a subject, more technical than a piece of popular science, but less detailed than a specialist textbook. It aims to give the reader a platform in a subject with which they may be unfamiliar, so that they can proceed simultaneously, or sequentially, to more advanced texts and information. Ideally the primer should have something for those without any knowledge, while also challenge and entertaining those who do. Not quite bedtime reading, but a step in that direction. Our Dynamic Earth introduces students to the Earth's origins, to plate tectonics, atmospheric and oceanographic circulation, as well as to a range of Earth surface processes. Idea to get you started in your studies.

This report summarizes data collected during the Sonoran Desert Network's first two seasons of terrestrial vegetation and soils monitoring in upland areas of the Tucson Mountain District, Saguaro National Park, in southern Arizona. Eleven permanent monitoring sites were sampled. This report summarizes effort to date, evaluates the sampling design within the context of monitoring objectives, and suggests modifications to the design.

In this report the authors assess and evaluate openland habitats at the Lakeshore and field scales and, in doing so, build upon the prior research of Scharf (1997) and the multi-scale assessment work of Corace (2007). The authors focus their efforts on understanding the ecological contributions provided by these habitats for openland bird species of conservation concern. A top-down analysis provides the authors with a framework to assess the conservation status of individual ecosystems at the Lakeshore and prioritize efforts within the context of contemporary environmental issues, such as the decline in populations of openland bird species across the Upper Midwest (i.e., Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin).

Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument is located in central New Mexico near the town of Mountainair. Gran Quivira was established as a National Monument in 1909, with Abo and Quarai park units established in 1980 (NPS 1984). The three units were redesignated as Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument in 1987. The Monument was established to "set apart and preserve for the benefit and enjoyment of the American People the ruins of prehistoric Indian pueblos and associated seventeenth century Franciscan Spanish mission ruins" (NPS 2006). The specific objectives of this project were to complete an exotic plant inventory, collect voucher specimens for new exotic species in the park, and write a report on exotic plant species occurring in Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument. This information may then be incorporated into future weed management projects to restore and preserve the vegetation and cultural landscape.