Author: Mark Sommer

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 116

ISBN-13:

"Wetland hydrology on the Chippewa National Forest (CNF) and its associated watersheds has been influenced by roads and railways, impoundments, and drainage ditches. Using a geographic information system (GIS), infrastructure responsible for flooded wetlands was inventoried and potentially drained wetland areas were modeled and mapped. On the CNF over 4700 travel route segments intersected wetlands with 133 of those showing an obvious influence on wetland hydrology. Impoundments accounted for 1427 ha of intentional wetland flooding at over 56 individual locations across the forest. The drained wetlands model identified more than 170,000 ha of potentially drained wetland across watersheds intersecting with CNF lands. Wetland loss ranged from 5.7 to 56.5% of pre-settlement wetland area for the individual watersheds. Those watersheds with greatest wetland loss tended to be those mostly outside the CNF administrative boundary, having population centers, and not part of the original Minnesota Forest Reserve. For the study watersheds, the area occupied by National Wetland Inventory Special modifier "d", representing ditched and partially drained wetlands, correlated positively with the area occupied by model value 8 and a by a combination of values 5 and 8 (p=0.016 and p=0.004 respectively). This was the relationship we expected to see and thus demonstrated a satisfactorily functioning drained wetlands model. Implications of this study for forest management include opportunities to; improve wetland crossings decommission roads, and restore drained and flooded wetland hydrology"--Abstract.