Inventory and Monitoring Program

The Northeast Temperate Network (NETN) was established by the US National Park Service (NPS) to monitor ecological conditions in 11 parks located in seven northeastern states as well as six additional states through which the Appalachian National Scenic Trail passes. The NETN operates with the mandate to preserve park natural resources "unimpaired for future generations." These resources include water, air, geological, faunal and floral, and the various ecological, biological, and physical processes that act on these resources. The broad-based, scientifically sound information obtained through long term natural resource monitoring will have multiple applications for management decision-making, research, education, and promoting public understanding of park resources.

Knowing the condition of natural resources in national parks is fundamental to the Service’s ability to manage park resources. Historically, managers and scientists have sought a way to characterize and determine trends in the condition of parks and other protected areas to provide early warning of impending threats and to assess the efficacy of management practices and restoration efforts. The challenge of protecting and managing a park’s natural resources relies on a partnership based ecosystem approach because most parks are open systems, where threats such as air and water pollution, and invasive species, originate outside established park boundaries beyond the control of park managers. Natural resource monitoring provides site-specific information needed to understand and identify change in complex, variable, and imperfectly understood natural systems and to determine whether observed changes are within natural levels of variability.

 

07-01-2008 - The combined Northeast Temperate Network and Mid-Atlantic Network forest crew completed plot establishment and sampling at Acadia NP in July, with the installation of 45 plots in the park. For the season, the crew has installed 93 plots in 5 parks, and they will depart for parks in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Coastal and Barrier Network in early August. Monthly water quality monitoring is also continuing in most NETN parks. NETN and Acadia NP staff met with Jim McKenna (Maine Maritime Academy) for a scoping meeting regarding estuarine and salt marsh monitoring at Acadia. This project will build on existing protocols (primarily those developed for the Northeast Coastal and Barrier Network) and focus on developing a cost-effective and citizen-science based monitoring program for these resources. The same strategy will be applied next year to Saugus Iron Works and Boston Harbor Islands.

Forest Monitoring 06-01-2008 - The Northeast Temperate Network (NETN) and Mid-Atlantic Network (MIDN) are training two field crews that will continue to implement the forest vegetation monitoring protocols in five NETN parks, nine MIDN parks, and three parks of the Northeast Coastal and Barrier Network. The combined forest vegetation monitoring protocol has now been submitted for peer-review. For additional information on the forest monitoring: http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/units/NETN/monitor/forestveg/forestveg.cfm The combined Northeast Temperate Network and Mid-Atlantic Network forest crew completed plot establishment and sampling at four parks in June. They installed and took measurements at 48 total plots at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller NHP, Minute Man NHP, Saratoga NHP, and Saint-Gaudens NHS. All permanent plots for these parks have now been installed (the first half of the plots in each park were installed in 2006), and plots will be re-visited every four years. Volunteers conducted bird monitoring in most NETN parks in June, and NPS and University of Vermont staff completed the second month of 2008 water quality monitoring in NETN parks.

05-01-2008 - The Appalachian National Scenic Trail was selected to receive funding under the National Park Service Centennial Challenge initiative. The money will be used to develop the A.T. MEGA-Transect program, which seeks to promote use of the A.T. for ecological monitoring and scientific research. Fred Dieffenbach will continue to work closely with the developing MEGA-Transect programs. Fred Dieffenbach also helped to coordinate a scoping session for the Appalachian Trail’s Level-1 Water Resource Inventory. Staff from the National Park Service Water Resource Division, USGS, the Appalachian Trail Park Office and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy attended. The meeting identified the types of water resources that will be investigated, and developed a preliminary strategy to review existing data and identify future resource inventory needs.

04-01-2008 - The efforts of the Northeast Temperate Network to encourage citizen science were highlighted in an article in BioScience (58(3):192-7) entitled, "Citizen Science: Can Volunteers Do Real Research", by Jeffrey Cohn. The Appalachian Trail MEGA-Transect, coastal bird monitoring at Boston Harbor Islands, and Vermont Center for Ecostudies’ Mountain BirdWatch were discussed in the article; all of these programs receive significant support from the NETN. NPS enthusiasm for citizen science was a clear theme throughout this article. Data summaries for the NETN 2007 bird monitoring season were completed and distributed to network parks, and the network is making progress on summaries of the forest and water monitoring programs. In addition, the network began preparing for the 2008 field season, including welcoming Eric Davis of the University of Vermont. Eric will be responsible for water monitoring in most network parks in 2008. Hiring of the forest monitoring crew is nearly complete (the crew will be 4 NPS seasonal biological technicians, shared with the Mid-Atlantic Network). Water and forest monitoring will begin in May.