Upper Midwest Node Report
January, 2005
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- Node Introduction
- Data Collection
- Phone Interviews
- Spatial Distribution of Projects
- Change Over Time
- Project Intents
Upper Midwest Team and Geographic Scope
Research efforts in this node were lead by Dr. J. David Allan and graduate student Gretchen Alexander of the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources & Environment. Our node is comprised of the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio.
Methods
Data Collection
We have spent the past two years (fall 2002 - spring 2004) collecting and entering data on stream restoration projects into the NRRSS database. In total, we collected information on 1346 projects.
Information on stream restoration projects were collected from a variety of sources, including federal, state, and county agencies, as well as watershed groups, drain commissioners (MI), local governments, consulting firms, and non-profit groups such as Trout Unlimited that have been involved in stream restoration practices. The largest single data source uncovered for our node was a database of Stream Habitat Improvement Projects in Michigan compiled by University of Michigan student Paul Steen.
Data collection ceased when it was felt that data sources had been adequately pursued and the data were considered representative of the population of stream restoration projects within our node. Our database was culled for duplicates by searching for projects with a combination of similar stream names, project names, project location, date of implementation, and project intents and activities. Representativeness was determined by sending a data summary for each state to stream restoration "experts" within those states. Experts were asked to comment on the representativeness of the data by spatial extent, distribution of project intents, and sources of information.
Phone interviews
Phone interviews were conducted on a stratified random sample of projects from the summary database for the purpose of assessing ecological success among restoration projects. These interview data are currently being analyzed and it is expected that many of our most interesting results will come from the analyses of these data.
Analysis of Trends from the Summary Database
Spatial Distribution of Projects
The spatial distribution of stream restoration projects in the Upper Midwest node shows a higher concentration of projects in the northern regions (Figure 2). This may be a result of a lack of agriculturally related projects in our node, for we are aware that our database does not capture the stream restoration work accomplished through Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) programs. This is because project-specific information on these types of Best Management Practices (BMP) projects is not easily available from NRCS offices.
Figure 2. Distribution of stream restoration projects in the Upper Midwest node. Data are summarized by County. The total number of stream restoration projects in the Upper Midwest node is 1346. However, 137 projects do not have county information and 53 projects span at least two counties. Therefore, in this diagram n = 1303.
Because agriculture is such a prominent land use within our node, we hope to characterize the contribution of these types of projects by using the combination of the summarized data available on-line from NRCS and cost per area estimates of stream related BMPs to estimate the total amount of money spent on stream restoration. To date, we have completed a geographic comparison of NRCS projects and NRRSS projects in the state of Michigan . This analysis reveals that the NRCS data nicely complements the NRRSS data spatially. Further analysis will reveal whether or not this is the case for the other two states.
Change Over Time
Analyses show that the number of stream restoration projects being implemented in the Upper Midwest node has increased steadily over time (Figure 3). This trend may partially reflect a greater availability of information about more recent projects, as well as an actual increase in project implementation over time.
The total cost of all projects in the Upper Midwest node with cost information in the summary database is in the tens of millions for the years 1970 - 2004. However, because this database is not comprehensive and not all of the projects in the database have cost information, it is likely that the actual amount of money spent on stream restoration in the Upper Midwest over the last 34 years is much greater.
Project Intents
The distribution of project intents within the node reveals that In-stream habitat Improvement and Bank Stabilization are the predominant project intents in this region (Figure 4).
However, this is partially because the large database of projects that was accessed for the state of Michigan consisted of projects that only had one or the other of these two intents. If one breaks down the project intents by state, it can be seen that the states of Michigan and Wisconsin are similar to each other in being dominated by In-stream Habitat Improvement projects, while Ohio 's most dominant project type is Water Quality Management (Figure 5). This result likely reflects the management focus of each state's natural resource regulatory agencies, with Michigan and Wisconsin focused primarily on coldwater fisheries enhancement, and Ohio 's EPA being particularly active with EPA 319 grants focused on water quality issues.
An analysis of the amount of monitoring that occurs in stream restoration projects reveals that only 11% of the project records indicated that some type of monitoring occurred. In addition, there does not appear to be a type of restoration project more likely to be monitored than others (Figure 6).
However, the lack of project monitoring may be more a reflection of poor project reporting than actual lack of monitoring. The phone interviews revealed a larger percentage of projects monitored than the summay database. A detailed analysis of the phone interviews will reveal the extent to which project monitoring is under reported and whether or not the monitoring that is conducted is effective in determining ecological success of restoration projects.