Conserving America's Wetlands 2008:
Four Years of Partnering Resulted in
Accomplishing the President's Goal

Appendix F.
Department of the Interior

Table F-1. DOI Programs Supporting the President's Wetlands Goal in FY 2009. Funding (millions of dollars)

Table F-2. DOI Programs Supporting the President's Wetlands Goal in FY 2009. Funding (millions of dollars)

DOI Programs Supporting the President’s Wetlands Goal

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)
Coastal Program: The Coastal Program works in 22 specific coastal communities to improve the health of watersheds for fish, wildlife, and people by building partnerships; identifying, evaluating, and mapping important habitats; restoring habitats; and providing technical assistance and financial support to help protect important coastal habitats. Since 1994, the program has re-established or rehabilitated 115,000 acres of coastal wetlands, 28,000 acres of coastal uplands, and more than 1,150 miles of coastal streamside habitat. It has also helped protect 1.35 million acres of coastal habitat. FWS also provides technical assistance to other federal, state, and local agencies under this program.
http://www.fws.gov/coastal

Fish and Wildlife Management Assistance (FWMA): This program delivers scientific information and projects that support cooperative efforts to conserve America’s fisheries and wildlife resources. FWMA includes on-the-ground conservation activities, such as assessing the condition of habitats, restoring stream and wetland habitats, restoring fish passage, and controlling aquatic nuisance species through physical, chemical, and biological means.
http://www.fws.gov/fisheries/fwma/

National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program(CWPPRA): Since 1990, the program has made available more than $202 million to 25 coastal states and one U.S. territory to acquire, conserve, or restore over 244,000 acres of coastal wetland ecosystems. Typically, between $17 and $20 million is awarded annually through a national competitive process. Grants for an individual project are limited to $1 million. Funding for this program comes from excise taxes on fishing equipment and motorboat and small engine fuels. States are required to provide either 50 or 75 percent of the total cost of the project, depending on whether the state has established and maintains a special fund for acquiring coastal wetlands, other natural areas, and open space. The program does not provide grants to support planning, research, monitoring activities, or construction or repair of structures for recreational purposes.
http://www.fws.gov/coastal/coastalgrants

National Wildlife Refuge System: The mission of the National Wildlife Refuge System, managed by FWS, is to administer a national network of lands and waters for the conservation, management, and, where appropriate, restoration of the fish, wildlife, and plant resources and their habitats within the United States for the benefit of present and future generations of Americans. Approximately one-quarter of the 96-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System consists of wetlands. The Refuge System protects, restores, rehabilitates, enhances, and conducts research on these wetlands. The Refuge System sustains wetlands to enhance their value for migratory waterfowl and shorebirds, threatened and endangered species, and a myriad of native fish, wildlife, and plants. The wetland restoration and conservation programs of the Refuge System sustain the biodiversity and environmental health of these habitats across diverse landscapes, and provide wildlife-dependent recreational opportunities for the American public.
http://www.fws.gov/refuges/

National Wildlife Refuge System, Migratory Bird Conswervation Fund program: The Migratory Bird Conservation Fund program finances two land acquisition programs that protect wetlands. Financed by the sale of Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamps (commonly known as Federal Duck Stamps), import duties, and refuge rights-of-way fees, the Fund purchases major areas for migratory birds under the authority of the Migratory Bird Conservation Act, and small, natural wetlands and interests under authority of the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act.

North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) Program: This program supports voluntary public–private partnerships to conserve North American wetland ecosystems. It provides matching grants to public and private groups and agencies for wetlands restoration and protection in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. More than 14.7 million acres of wetlands and associated uplands have been protected, restored, or enhanced by program activities since 1991.
http://birdhabitat.fws.gov/nawca/grants.htm

North American Waterfowl Management Plan - Joint Ventures: This tri-national strategic plan fosters the creation of partnerships among the federal government, states, tribes, corporations, private organizations, and individuals to cooperate in the planning, funding, and implementation of projects to conserve and enhance wetland habitat in high-priority “joint venture” regions. The plan calls for 16.1 million acres of wetlands and associated uplands to be protected and 12.1 million acres to be restored or enhanced.
http://www.fws.gov/birdhabitat/nawmp

Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program: Authorized by the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Act, this voluntary program, begun in 1987, works with landowners to restore fish and wildlife habitat including wetlands on private lands using cooperative agreements. The FWS has entered into more than 41,000 agreements with partners. The program has restored 800,000 acres of wetlands and rehabilitated more than 1.6 million acres of uplands and more than 6,000 miles of riparian and in-stream habitat. FWS also provides technical assistance to other federal, state, and local agencies under this program.
http://www.fws.gov/partners

DOI Programs that Maintain the Wetlands Base

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
National Wildlife Refuge System: In FY 2007, the National Wildlife Refuge System managed 135,174 acres for moist soils and 848,302 acres received other water-level manipulation. In FY 2008, those management activity accomplishments are expected to include 127,274 moist soil acres managed, with water-level manipulation achieved on 841,459 acres of water impoundments.
http://www.fws.gov/refuges/

National Wetlands Inventory (NWI): The goal of the NWI is to produce information on the characteristics, extent, and status of the nation’s wetlands and deepwater and riparian habitats in order to promote the understanding and conservation of these resources. The program currently has data for 56 percent of the nation available on-demand and is updating one percent per year. Federal, state, and local government agencies; tribes; academic institutions; Congress; and the private sector use this information and digital maps to guide natural resource planning, management, and project development. Wetlands data are used in planning for emerging conservation issues such as energy development, species population declines, avian influenza, and global climate change (where they are used to model sealevel rise). The wetlands data are available over the Internet. Wetlands status and trend data and reports provide contemporary information for decision-making and for wetlands policy formulation, assessment, and performance monitoring.
http://www.fws.gov/nwi/

Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration (NRDAR) Program: The FWS’s NRDAR Program, as part of the Environmental Contaminants Program, restores wetland acres that have been harmed by the release of contaminants from former hazardous waste sites and oil and chemical spills. In FY 2007, the NRDAR program was responsible for the restoration and enhancement of nearly 5,000 wetland acres and for the protection of 2,400 wetland acres. In addition, the Program restored or enhanced 171 riparian stream miles and managed or protected 157 riparian stream miles. Where possible, the FWS partners with other federal agencies, other FWS programs, states, tribes, or non-governmental organizations to enlarge these ongoing restoration efforts, which increases the value of the restoration to fish and wildlife. Such efforts are critical to maintaining high-quality base wetland acres. The Division of Environmental Quality provides approximately $1.5 million in toxicology, ecology, and habitat restoration expertise to EPA and other federal and state partners to minimize impacts to wetlands during the cleanup of contaminated areas. The division makes substantial contributions to maintaining the base of wetland acres as well as restoring and improving wetlands at former hazardous waste sites and areas impacted by oil and chemical spills.
http://contaminants.fws.gov/issues/restoration.cfm

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
Healthy wetland ecosystems provide habitat for diverse fish and wildlife communities, protection from erosion and flood attenuation from extreme storm events, water quality, and recreational opportunities. Studies conducted by USGS scientists describe factors that control wetland ecosystem structure, dynamics, function, interactions with the surrounding landscapes, and the provision of goods and services. This information is used to predict future changes to ecosystems and describe the results of management alternatives. In support of federal and state resource managers, USGS provides scientific expertise that helps decision makers build and implement adaptive management strategies to support wetlands restoration and creation and to effectively improve and protect coastal, forested, and freshwater wetlands and identify measures to adapt management to climate change.
http://biology.usgs.gov/ecosystems/wetlands.html

Prairie Pothole Region/Great Plains: Research in this region expands the ecological understanding of processes that influence wetland functions and values in agriculture land scapes. Research on global climate change, sediment and nutrient dynamics, the effectiveness of wetland restoration and enhancement for flood storage and wildlife habitat, and the potential of prairie pothole wetlands to sequester carbon are also being addressed.
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/about/factsheet/wetlands.htm

Great Lakes: In this region, the effects of Great Lakes water-level fluctuations on wetlands are being researched, in addition to global climate change studies of wetlands that focus on interactions between climate change, lake levels, groundwater hydrology, and wetland response. This research provides scientific information to support the restoration, conservation, and management of wetlands. FY 2008 funding request is $0.790 million.
http://www.glsc.usgs.gov

Gulf Coast: Hurricanes Katrina and Rita placed a high priority on research, spatial analyses, predictive modeling, technology development, and information synthesis and outreach related to the impacts to the nation’s critical Gulf Coast coastal and freshwater wetlands and habitats. USGS wetlands science in this region provides scientific information that resource managers and planners need to stabilize, restore, rehabilitate, and manage wetlands, including seagrass beds, mangrove forests, coastal saltwater and freshwater marshes, and forested wetlands. In addition, global climate change studies focus on riverine and coastal wetland response to CO2 levels in the Lower Mississippi River Valley and the response of coastal wetlands to sea level rise and extreme events along the coast.
http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov

Atlantic Coast: Wetlands research in the Atlantic region provides scientific information on restoration, enhancement, and creation of coastal and estuarine wetlands; wetlands health; and sustainability for the goods and services they provide. A major focus in this area includes global climate change studies, which focus on wetland response to sea level rise and wetland management options in maintaining healthy wetlands and critical habitat for migrating waterfowl and fisheries species. Other investigations include the effects of varying fire regimes on wetland habitats in maintaining elevation in response to sea level rise.
http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/wetlands/

Puget Sound: Wetlands research in the Puget Sound focuses on understanding nearshore ecosystem processes and linkages to watersheds and wetlands, decision support and adaptive management strategies for coastal marsh and associated near-shore habitat restoration for benthic and aquatic organisms such as fisheries, and integrated research to improve restoration techniques for vegetated estuarine and coastal wetlands. The role of wetlands in urban and rural settings and the relationship to fisheries will also be investigated.
http://puget.usgs.gov/

Montane Wetlands: Wetlands and related riparian research in the montane regions of the West focuses on the relationship of sedimentation and vegetation dynamics in agricultural landscapes, the effectiveness of restoration efforts in meeting the habitat needs of wildlife and migratory birds, cumulative effects of groundwater withdrawal on wetland processes, water level management on wildlife areas in relation to wetland dynamics and climate patterns, and wetland and riparian restoration for management in a changing climate.
http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/research/montane_wetlands.htm

Restoring the Nation's Greater Everglades and Coastal Ecosystems: Restoring the nation’s Greater Everglades and adjacent Florida Bay and Biscayne Bay coastal ecosystems in south Florida, over half of which is under the stewardship of the Department of the Interior, is the largest environmental restoration project ever attempted in the United States. USGS continues to be a key partner in Greater Everglades restoration by providing fundamental and applied scientific information on ecosystem history, water quality and contaminants, surface and groundwater flows, and species responses to hydropattern dynamics. A major USGS thrust continues to be the development of new and improved ecosystem models such as hydrologic, ecological, landscape, and water quality/ contaminant models. These models are being integrated into decision support tools to aid in restoration-related planning decisions by the Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, EPA, and the South Florida Water Management District to predict the consequences of varied management alternatives, set ecological goals by providing yardsticks to measure restoration success, and manage the natural resources of the system.
http://sofia.usgs.gov/

California Bay-Delta: Activities in the San Francisco bay and delta focus on providing status and trend information on water quality in the San Joaquin River, Sacramento River watersheds, and San Francisco estuary; wetlands restoration; and unbiased and reliable scientific information and tools that explain the occurrence and effects of toxic substances in the Bay-Delta hydrologic environment. These activities support or have related and overlapping objectives with the state/federal agencies’ CALFED Bay-Delta Program and the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project. CALFED is a multi-agency, multibillion-dollar, 30-year plan to restore ecosystem functions, improve water supply reliability, provide wetland restoration for water quality improvement and wildlife habitat, and sustain water quality for California watersheds. USGS provides leadership for CALFED’s scientific aspects and specific studies that develop new knowledge meant to improve program decisions and be relevant to CALFED proposed actions. In FY 2008 and FY 2009, USGS will continue to work on identifying the effects of the changing hydrology, infrastructure, and climate on the physical, chemical, and biological processes of the system. USGS will also address the interaction between important processes of the marshes and adjacent bays, with a focus on current declines of pelagic fish species and the restoration of salt ponds in ecosystems compatible with the needs of the San Francisco bay and freshwater delta.
http://sfbay.wr.usgs.gov/

The San Francisco Bay and Delta: An Estuary Undergoing Change

The San Francisco Bay estuary, at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers in central California, is renowned for its natural beauty, international commerce, recreation, and sport fishing. However, the estuary has been greatly modified by 150 years of intensifying human activity (Nichols et al. 1986). More than 95 percent of the historic tidal marshes have been leveed and filled, with attendant losses in fish and wildlife habitat. The flow of freshwater into the estuary has been greatly reduced by water diversions, largely to support irrigated agriculture. Harbor and channel dredging has changed both the dredged and disposal sites and altered water flow patterns and salinity. Contaminants enter the estuary in municipal and industrial sewage and urban and agricultural runoff. Introduced exotic species continue to change the Bay’s biota by altering its food webs. All of these changes have had marked effects on the estuary’s biological resources, particularly well documented by declines in abundance of fish species (San Francisco Estuary Project Management Committee 1994). The loss of 95 percent of the estuary’s wetlands since 1850 (Fig. 1) has placed increased importance on the remaining 125 km2 of wetlands that continue to be threatened by development, erosion, pollution, and rising sea levels. Wetland management agencies (e.g., the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission) must also develop viable strategies for creating new wetlands in leveed areas used as farmland or as salt evaporating ponds that have subsided since being isolated from Bay waters. As an example, the use of dredge spoils to fill these areas raises questions about release of contaminants and changes in wetland habitat values. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is participating in the restoration of a 350-acre tract of land on San Pablo Bay by monitoring the development of tidal channels and flow patterns, changes in geotechnical and geochemical properties of the pre-existing and new sediment (dredge spoils), and sedimentation patterns within the restored wetlands and adjacent areas. USGS is also mapping wetlands distributions using remotely sensed image data and monitoring physical processes including currents, wind, and waves that alter wetlands and adjacent shallows. USGS is quantifying the distribution and elevations of the shoreline and developing models that characterize the physical forces acting upon wetlands. Recognition of the conflicts among the many uses of the Bay/Delta system have brought the public, resource managers and regulators, and elected officials together to recognize the great need for credible, unbiased scientific information on the significance of river flow diversion, contaminant inputs, dredging, and habitat alteration (San Francisco Estuary Project Management Committee 1994).

The San Francisco Bay estuary and Delta at the time of the discovery of gold in the Sierra Nevada foothills ( first panel) and at present (second panel). (USGS). USGS, as a long-time leader in studies of the San Francisco Bay estuary, has provided much of the fundamental knowledge of interrelations among the hydrology, geology, chemistry, and ecology of this complex estuarine system. The USGS is now focusing field, laboratory, and modeling studies on the effects of freshwater flow on the estuary’s chemistry and biology,the distribution and influence of contaminants on estuarine invertebrates, and the processes influencing the character and stability of remaining wetlands.   References: Nichols, F. H., Cloern, J. E., Luoma, S. N., and Peterson, D.H. 1986. The modification of an estuary. Science 231:567–573. San Francisco Estuary Project Management Committee. 1994. Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan: San Francisco Estuary Project. http://biolog y.usgs.gov/ecosystems/interdecosci.html