T-10-T, Study 237016 - 1
T-10-T, MichiganNew Study: 2008-09
Study 237016
Name of Study:Refinement of the aquatic portion of Michigan’s Wildlife Action Plan and development of tools to support the plan
A.Problem:This proposal deals with two emerging issues.First, Fisheries Division is involved with development and implementationof the aquatic portion of the Michigan’s Wildlife Action Plan (MWAP).This plan was submitted and accepted byUSFWSin 2005 to meet the State Wildlife Grant funding requirements.During the past 3 years, Fisheries Division has made considerable effort in resource monitoring, habitat improvement, and habitat permit evaluation.There has been little effortidentifying high priority conservation areas, assessing ecosystem health, and identifying key human disturbance factors that are components required by USFWS and MWAP.This lack of progress is due to resource managers not having the appropriate framework, databases, and tools for carrying out such tasks.
Second, the department is also responsible to complete a 5-year progress report by 2010 and a required 10-year conservation strategy refinement report by 2015.Presently, Fisheries Division does not have a strategy to fulfill the aquatic portion of these responsibilities.Without adequately synthesizing the Division’s management activities and producing the required reports, we will jeopardize our efforts to protect, enhance, and rehabilitate aquatic resources and risk losing federal funds.
B.Objectives:The goal of this project is to refine the Michigan’s comprehensive aquatic conservation strategy, synthesize progress made during the first phase of implementation of the plan, and develop improved databases, frameworks, and tools for the implementation of MWAP.The objectives are to: (1)update and maintain Michigan’s riverclassification framework and databases and coordinate the development Michigan inland lake GIS databases and classification framework; (2)refine Michigan’s ecological drainage units (EDU) that were developed by The Nature Conservancy; (3)define aquatic ecological systems (AES)([ESGJ1]subwatersheds with distinct characteristics in physicochemical and biological properties); (4)identify high priority conservation areas for both inland lakes and rivers; (5)assess environmental conditions of Michigan’s rivers and inland lakes; (6)identify key environmental threats to each water body; (7)develop GIS application tools to meet the other implementation needs of the MWAP programs of Fisheries Division; (8)synthesize progress made in aquatics during the first 5-year wildlife action plan into a progress report; and (9)develop and write the aquatic portion of the 10-year conservation strategy refinement report.
C.Justification:The proposed objectives will enable Fisheries Division to more strategically plan and manage Michigan’s aquatic resources, to more effectively allocate resources, to more efficiently protect, enhance, and restore high conservation areas, and to fulfill the obligations related to State Wildlife Grant funding.Without implementing the proposed objectives, we will have to make management decisions in a less objective wayand risk losing federal funding.The advancement of GIS technology and the increased availability of statewide databases have substantially improved the efficiency of obtaining essential information for implementing biological conservation.It has become clear that more and more fisheries and other aquatic resource programs are relying on statewide databases and advanced GIS tools to effectively carry out dailymanagement activities.However, management staffin fisheries programs are typically users, not developers, of conservation framework, databases, and GIS application tools.It is the vision of the Fisheries Division that researchers develop frameworks, databases, and application tools to meet current, emerging, and future management needsof managers and policy makers.
The statewide river and lake databases and classification framework of Fisheries Division, developed and managed by the Institute for Fisheries Research,haveevolved under such a vision and have become the key aquatic data sources for implementing the MWAP.However, due to resource and time limitation, the initial river and lake databases and classification frameworks were developed to meet the specific needs of the development of the first version the MWAP.To more efficiently protect, enhance, and restore high conservation areas, and to fulfill the obligations related to State Wildlife Grant funding, substantial refinements of the statewide framework, databases, and implementation plan are needed.The refinement of the MWAP will use the current statewide river and lake databases as a backbone.The proposed ecological drainage units, aquatic ecological systems, high valued conservation areas, and aquatic resource environmental status will be added to the database.Although the current river and lake databasesand associated application tools have been widely used by many programs in DNR and DEQ, especially by Fisheries Division programs, many important components needed by the MWAP are missing.Presently, there is no resource to maintain, update, add new components, and develop new tools to meet the needs of MWAP.Without allocating new resources to provide support for updating, maintenance, developing new program specific application tools, and providing GIS technical support to users, the implementation of MWAP will be jeopardized.
D.Expected Results and Benefits:This project will generate (1)a refined river database, framework, and associated application tools; (2)a coordinated parallel lake database, framework, and associated application tools; (3)a 5-year progress report that will synthesize progress made by Fisheries Division on aquatic issues for the first 5years of theMWAP implementation; and (4)a conservation strategy refinement plan/report that will summarize progress made during the first 10 years implementation of the MWAP and will develop an enhanced comprehensive aquatic conservation strategy and management supporting tools for Version 2 due to USFWS in spring of 2015.The river work will use the current statewide database as a backbone and incorporate many newly developed elements that are essential for the implementation of MWAP.Those new elements include EDUs, AES, high priority conservation areas, river valley segment (VSEG) environmental status, key human disturbances associated with each VSEG, projected fish assemblage for each VSEG, and VSEGs that predict where to findspecies of greatest conservation need including rare, endangered, threatened, and special concerned species and their associated key habitats.The lake work will use the statewide inland lake classification framework database that is currently under development as the backbone and incorporate many newly developed elements that are essential for MWAP implementation.Those key new elements include EDUs, inland lake AES, high priority conservation lakes and their associated local and network watersheds, lake health status, key human disturbances associated with each lake, projected fish assemblage type for each lake, and lakes that predict where to findspecies of greatest conservation need including rare, endangered, threatened, and special concerned species and their associated key habitats.The progress report will synthesize and analyze monitoring and other conservation efforts made during the first 5-year implementation of the aquatic portions of the MWAP and to detail progresses and identify and prioritize remaining gaps.The conservation strategy refinement report will synthesize and analyze the monitoring and other conservation efforts made during the first 10-year implementation of the aquatic portions of the MWAP and to report progresses and identify gaps.The conservation strategy refinement report will also develop enhanced strategies to fill remaining gaps and implement new management plans.This document will be integrated with a similar terrestrial portion compiled by Wildlife Division to become the Version 2 of MWAP, which is mandated by Congress to be rewritten every 10 years.In addition to fulfilling Michigan’s obligations for State Wildlife Grant funding, results will deliver specific GIS tools for specific management programs.The project will provide GIS technical support to Fisheries Division and other DNR programs using the database and GIS tools meet the needs for implementation of MWAP.This proposed project will enhance the knowledge of management personnel in understanding the function and process of the resources they manage; increase the efficiency in decision making; and improve effectiveness of management actions.This project will provide fisheries and other aquatic resource managers with information and tools that are otherwise not available, but are essential, for science-based biological conservation decision making.
E.Background:During mid 1990s, Seelbach et al. (1997) developed the first version of river valley segment database for the Lower Peninsula of Michigan (VSEC-I).This pioneer work developedan operational procedure for mapping stream and river units, attributing data to these units, classifying river segments, and building the first regional river database using a manual and experts’ opinion process.They used river valley segments that are relatively homogenous in hydrologic, limnologic, and geomorphic characteristics as stream mapping units for classification, because they are ataspatial scale over which many important physical and biological processes operate and many management activities occur.They first identified river valley segment boundaries by visualizing a river network map in relation to thematic landscape maps (e.g., elevation, land cover, surficial geology) within a GIS environment.This was completed based on their knowledge of landscape and network factors that determine instream physicochemical and biological characteristics to identify river valley segment boundaries.They then qualitatively assigned physicochemical and biological attributes to each river valley segment.The river segment classification is the result of combining the categories of qualitative physicochemical and biological attributes.During early 2000s, a similar stream and river database and classification framework was developed for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan using the same approach (Baker 2006).These two efforts used the best landscape data and GIS tools available at the time, providing the best possible initial description of river resources and their classification for the entire state of Michigan (Seelbach et al. 2006).This information was used in the development of the aquatic river portion of the MWAP (Eagle et al. 2005).
More recently, the Institute for Fisheries Research, collaborating withUSGS Great Lakes Aquatic Gap Program, Michigan DEQ,and several universities in Michigan, developed improved procedures for mapping river segments, assigning attributes, and identifying segment types for all streams and rivers in Michigan (VSEC-II) (Brenden et al. 2006; Brenden et al. 2008).For each stream segment, riparian buffer, local catchment, and network catchment boundaries were delineated; surficial geology types, land use/cover types, soil permeability, climate information, and landscape topography within each spatial scale were attributed; river segment and network descriptors were calculated; summer mean stream temperature, annual and high/low flow discharges, and groundwater deliveryinto streams were predicted; future land-usechanges were projected; a preliminary segment classification was conducted; and available fish assemblage and physical habitat data were linked.This database is the first of this kind in the country and has a great potential to be used for aquatic resource conservation, watershed management, point and nonpoint source pollution regulation, and fisheries management.
Parallel to the river database development, the Institute for Fisheries Research is also developing a statewide lake database and classification systemfor all inland lakes 5 acres and larger in Michigan.This effort will produce several relational databases, predictive models forkey lake descriptors, and goal specific classification systems.The databases include a centralized and standardized dataset of water quality, biological communities, lake morphology, and shoreline development for a limited number of lakes where such information is available; a GIS database containing buffer, local and network lake catchment boundaries for all lakes that are 5 acres or larger; a database containing natural landscape and human disturbance descriptors for the buffer and local and network catchments of lakes, and lake network descriptors.Modeling of key lake descriptors will result in coarse level predictions of lake depth, percentage of littoral zone area, lake-water turnover rate, summer oxygen and temperature levels below thermocline, and in-lake/shoreline human disturbances for lakes that do not have field-collected data.The classification systems and their applications include a classification system that accounts for natural variation in physicochemical and biological characteristicsamong lakes in a series of lake groups that describes the suitability for selected sport fisheries.
Although the fully developed river database and the partially developed lake database have benefited many critical state natural resource programs, the first version of MWAP used an early version of the river database (VSEC-I) and only a subset of the lake database.Since the development of MWAP, the river database has been evolved into VSEC-II and many models have been developed for predicting critical parameters.At the same time, the statewide lake database containing all Michigan lakes that are 5 acres or larger has been developed.Such statewide river and lake databases make it feasible for the development of a further refined, integrated, holistic, and science-based MWAP.Such databases also make it possible for developing analytical and management framework and tools to meet the obligations of State Wildlife Grant funding.
F.Procedures:
Job 1.Update and maintain the river database, and coordinate the development of inland lake database to meet the MWAP needs.The databases will be updated as new and better resolution databases become available.The databases will also be updated as advanced computer hardware and GIS software become available.
Job 2.Refine Michigan’s ecological drainage units that were developed by The Nature Conservancy.
Job 3.Define aquatic ecological systems (subwatersheds with distinct characteristics in physicochemical and biological properties).
Job 4.Identify high priority conservation areas for both inland lakes and rivers.
Job 5.Assess environmental conditions of Michigan rivers and inland lakes.
Job 6.Identify key environmental threats to each water body.
Job 7.Develop GIS application tools to meet the other Fisheries Division implementation needs of the MWAP.
Job 8.Provide GIS support to the MWAP in mapping critical habitats and distributions of species of greatest conservation need. Also provide support to the designation of critical aquatic conservation areas.
Job 9.Synthesize progress made during the first 5-year wildlife action plan into a progress report.
Job 10.Develop and write the 10-year conservation strategy refinement report.
Job 11.Prepare annual performance report.
Job 12.Write final report.
G.Schedule/Budget: (X = active)[ESGJ2]
2008-09 / 2009-10 / 2010-11 / 2011-12 / 2012-13 / 2013-14 / 2014-15Schedule
Job 1Update and maintain the river database / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
Job 2Refine Michigan’s ecological drainage units / X / X
Job 3Define aquatic ecological systems / X / X / X
Job 4Identify high priority conservation areas / X / X / X
Job 5Assess environmental conditions / X / X / X
Job 6Identify key environmental threats / X / X / X
Job 7Develop GIS application tools / X / X / X / X / X / X
Job 8Provide GIS support / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
Job 9Synthesize progress / X
Job 10Develop and write the 10-year conservation strategy refinement report / X / X
Job 11Prepare annual performance report / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
Job 12Write final report / X
Budget
GIS technician
salary / $38,608 / $40,538 / $42,565 / $44,694 / $46,928 / $49,275 / $51,734
fringes / $26,392 / $27,712 / $29,097 / $30,552 / $32,080 / $33,684 / $35,368
Total / $65,000 / $68,250 / $71,662 / $75,246 / $79,008 / $82,959 / $87,102
MNFI consultant
% of time / 10 / 20 / 10 / 10 / 10 / 20 / 40
salary / $5,117 / $10,745 / $5,641 / $5,923 / $6,219 / $13,061 / $27,426
fringes / $2,186 / $4,592 / $2,410 / $2,531 / $2,657 / $5,582 / $11,721
Total / $7,303 / $15,337 / $8,051 / $8,454 / $8,877 / $18,642 / $39,147
Project total / $72,303 / $83,587 / $79,713 / $83,700 / $87,885 / $101,601 / $126,249
H.Geographical Location:Databases, GIS tools, and technical support will be for watersheds located throughout the State of Michigan. Personnel conducting the work will be at Institute for Fisheries Research, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
I.Personnel:Liz Hay-Chmielewski, Lizhu Wang, and a GISspecialist at Institute for Fisheries Research,Ann Arbor.Amy Derosier, Michigan Natural Features Inventory, Lansing.
Literature Cited:
Baker, E. A.2006.A landscape-based ecological classification system for river valley segments in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Fisheries Research Report 2085, Ann Arbor.
Brenden, T. O., R. D. Clark, Jr., A. R. Cooper, P. W. Seelbach, L. Wang, S. S. Aichele, E. G. Bissell, and J. S. Stewart.2006.A GIS framework for collecting, managing, and analyzing multi-scale landscape variables across large regions for river conservation and management. American Fisheries Society, Special Publication 48.
Brenden, T. O., L. Wang, P. W. Seelbach, R. D. Clark, Jr., M. J. Wiley, and B. L. Sparks-Jackson.2008.A spatially-constrained clustering program for river valley segment delineation from GIS digital river networks.Environmental Modeling and Software 23:638-649.
Eagle, A.C., E.M. Hay-Chmielewski, K. Cleveland, A. Derosier, M. Herbert, and R. Rustem. 2005. Michigan’s Wildlife Action Plan. Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Lansing.
Seelbach, P. W., M. J. Wiley, J. C. Kotanchik, and M. E. Baker.1997.A landscape-based ecological classification system for river valley segments in Lower Michigan.Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Fisheries Division, Research Report 2036, Ann Arbor.
Seelbach, P. W., M. J. Wiley, M. E. Baker, and K. E. Wehrly.2006.Initial classification of river valley segments across Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.American Fisheries Society, Special Publication 48, Bethesda, Maryland.
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[ESGJ1]correct? )( Is there a better way?
[ESGJ2]Check job names (I shortened them for the table) and enter x’s for schedule