Summary: Where To?
Participants in the May 2005 Workshop recognized the value of Vital Signs monitoring to: a) assess the efficacy of management practices and restoration efforts; b) characterize trends in the condition of parks; and c) identify gaps in knowledge where additional research should be promoted. Recommendations for achieving maximum value from Vital Signs monitoring are grouped into categories of human, biotic, and environmental resources and presented below.
HUMAN
- Target management actions that facilitate recreation and mediate its environmental impacts. Careful consideration is required of the effects of increasing visitation upon the parks, including trails and campgrounds, rights of way, poaching, parking, and roadways.
- Develop monitoring to assess human pressures from watersheds surrounding the parks. These pressures include changes in land use and impervious surface, encroachment, and agricultural leaching of nutrients, sediments, and pesticides.
- Promote research to understand mechanisms by which humans influence the parks. Research into the impacts of visitor use, traffic and noise, as well as nutrient, sediment, and pesticide pollutants would be especially beneficial.
BIOTA
- Target management strategies to manage combinations of natural and highly modified habitats. Exotic species are present in all parks and require management, along with populations of native species (e.g., white-tailed deer and beaver) that potentially act as ecosystem engineers.
- Develop monitoring to evaluate biodiversity and track the balance between native and non-native species. Specifically, monitoring of native populations of white-tailed deer and Canada geese, invasive plant and animal species, and rare, threatened, or endangered species is recommended.
- Promote research to inform management of invasive species, pests, rare species, and ecological engineers. Better knowledge is needed of exotic plant species reinvasion after herbicide or fire control, the impacts of overabundant fauna on floral diversity, and the distribution and behavior of understudied fauna.
ENVIRONMENT
- Target management actions to retain structure and value of diverse ecological environments. Special management needs are associated with unique habitats in wetland marshes, streams, seeps, vernal pools, riparian zones, and sensitive soil environments.
- Develop monitoring to assess health and stability of physical environments with emphasis on aquatic systems. Markers of healthy aquatic ecosystems include water column nutrients and chemicals, water flow, erosion, macroinvertebrates and amphibians, and stormwater overflows.
- Promote research to improve knowledge of environmental impacts throughout the watersheds. Potential projects include groundwater and wetland mapping, and watershed-scale studies of stream intactness and inputs. Research into the caves and limestone glades within some parks also may help to understand and preserve these unique and rare features.
The conceptual diagrams we depict are not static products. These ‘thought drawings’ will be continually refined as our knowledge of ecological systems in the National Capital Region Parks becomes more sophisticated. Data collected through vital signs monitoring will be used to support the processes and interactions portrayed by the vignettes. Collectively, the scoping, visual elements, and ecological themes synthesized in this booklet form the basis for integrated assessments.
The next phase of this project will define ranges of condition for both individual vital signs and suites of indicators that can be used to report on ecological condition. The ultimate goal for our work will be to institute a framework for ecological assessments using monitoring data and to visually present the results of assessments in an effective manner such that informed research, management, or monitoring decisions can be made (Figure 6).
Figure 6. Project Timeline.