Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands Consortium

Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands Monitoring Plan

The Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands Monitoring Plan, completed in March 2008, represents nearly seven years of work by the Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands Consortium that has resulted in a long-term plan to monitor Great Lakes coastal wetlands using a scientifically validated sampling design and suite of indicators and metrics developed by many project partners. The project was coordinated by staff of the Great Lakes Commission and funded by the U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office (Grant #GL-97547303). Partners included scientific and policy experts drawn from key U.S. and Canadian federal, state and provincial agencies, nongovernmental organizations, academia, and members of other interest groups with responsibility for coastal wetlands monitoring. The document will be of great value and benefit to agencies planning to incorporate coastal wetland monitoring into their overall monitoring strategy.

The Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands Monitoring Plan recommends multiple biological protocols and metrics for monitoring the condition of Great Lakes coastal wetlands – including those for plants, invertebrates, fish, amphibians, and birds. Also recommended is a design for sampling Great Lakes coastal wetlands that allows users to monitor condition of these wetlands on an annual basis. With a combination of repeated site visits and random sampling of other wetlands on an annual basis, users can establish status and trends (positive, negative, no change) of wetland condition for a given site, region, or for all Great Lakes coastal wetlands.

Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands Monitoring Plan (Final Report, PDF, 15M)

• Cover, Table of Contents, Editors, Authors, Acknowledgments (PDF, 289K)
• Executive Summary (PDF, 143K)
• Chapter 1 Statistical Design (PDF, 338K)
• Chapter 2 Chemical/Physical and Land Use/Cover Measurements (PDF, 121K)
• Chapter 3 Vegetation Community Indicators (PDF, 441K)
• Chapter 4 Invertebrate Community Indicators (PDF, 219K)
• Chpater 5 Fish Community Indicators (PDF, 208K)
• Chapter 6 Amphibian Community Indicators (PDF, 1.1M)
• Chapter 7 Bird Community Indicators (PDF, 584K)
• Chapter 8 Landscape-Based Indicators (PDF, 1.6M)
• Chapter 9 Cost Analysis for Sampling of Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands (PDF, 682K)
  • Appendix 9-1: Wetland Sampling Cost Estimator Tool (XLS, 69K)
• Chapter 10 Data Management System (PDF, 234K)
• Chapter 11 Partnerships for Implementation (PDF, 272K)
• Monitoring Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands: Summary Recommendations (PDF, 167K)
• Appendix A. Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands Classification (PDF, 523K)
• Appendix B. Validation and Performance of an Invertebrate Index of Biotic Integrity for Lakes Huron and Michigan Fringing Wetlands During a Period of Lake Level Decline (PDF, 7.4M)
• Appendix C. Fish Habitat Use Within and Across Wetland Classes in Coastal Wetlands of the Five Great Lakes: Development of a Fish-based Index of Biotic Integrity (PDF, 3.6M)