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Project overview

Phase I
Data collection
and pictures

Phase II
Data analysis

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Assessing the Health Of Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands

The Great Lakes Commission has convened the Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands Consortium to expand the monitoring and reporting capabilities of the U.S. and Canada under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The Consortium's purpose is to design an implementable, long-term program to monitor Great Lakes coastal wetlands. This is being accomplished through the development of indicators to assess the condition of Great Lakes coastal wetlands. The selected indicators were selected through the State of the Lake Ecosystem Conference (SOLEC) process. The Consortium will provide scientific support for this monitoring program; create a database that is publicly accessible; recruit the leadership required to implement the long-term monitoring program; and develop a network of funders and agencies who will support the Great Lakes coastal wetlands monitoring program.

In initial phase in the process the Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands Consortium administered six pilot studies to test the usefulness and applicability of various methods and metrics across the basin in a collaborative fashion. Project field work took place in over 30 wetland sites distributed across the Great Lakes basin. Information was collected and analyzed on the Consortium's indicators which include biological, physical, chemical, and landscape measures.

In the second phase, we compiled and analyzed the data collected by the six pilot projects to determine the degree to which these techniques can be used diagnose wetland status across the basin. The criteria under assessment were: cost, measureability, basinwide applicability of sampling by wetland type, availability of complementary existing data or research, indicator sensitivity to wetland condition changes, and ability to set endpoint or attainment levels.