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Symposium SSO1: A Watershed-Based Evaluation of the Mississippi River Basin Symposium SS02: Sustainable Freshwater Systems: Changing Landscapes and Interdisciplinary Challenges Symposium SS04: Wetland Stewardship: North American Experience Symposium SSO5: Community-Based Restoration and Associated Science-based Monitoring Symposium SSO7: Wetlands in Urban Watersheds: Connections and Context Symposium SSO8: Nutria: Biology, Impacts, and Management. Symposium SS10: Students: What You Need to Know for Our Field's Future Symposium SS11: Restoration Strategies for Coastal Wetlands in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Symposium SS12: New Directions in Wetland Assessment ************************************************* Symposium
SSO1: A Watershed-Based Evaluation of the Mississippi River Basin Organizers: Robert Delaney The Mississippi River
system has played an integral role in the social, economic, and ecological
heritage of North America. The Mississippi River drains about 40% of the
United States, including all or part of 31 states and includes the Missouri,
Ohio, Tennessee, and the Arkansas-Red-White River basins. Due to the immense
size and geographic distribution of the Mississippi River Basin, it supports
diverse climatic, geomorphic, hydrologic, and socioeconomic controls.
Historically, restoration, management, and research activities in the
Mississippi River Basin have been divided among the above-mentioned basins
as well as the Upper and Lower Mississippi River Valleys and Coastal Deltaic
Plain. Typically a watershed-based approach has been used that focuses
on tributaries of the Mississippi River, a specific length of the Mississippi
River, or for Coastal Louisiana, specific deltaic lobes that exhibit different
rates and types of coastal processes. The sub-basin approach has proved
effective in addressing many issues, however each basin could benefit
from an overall synthesis and systemic evaluation. Few scientists, policy
makers, and other natural resource professionals understand the breadth
and complexity of issues within their basin. Although the spatial scale
of the sub-basin approach is challenging, increased concern over hypoxia
in the Gulf of Mexico and coastal loss in Louisiana suggest that an even
larger-scale approach is needed. These problems are indicative of broad-scale
systemic degradation, and restoration and rehabilitation measures necessitate
a watershed-based approach. Solutions will require an understanding of
the diverse issues present throughout the entire Mississippi River watershed
and an integration of conservation and restoration efforts across all
sub-basins. The objectives of thjs symposium are: (1) To provide a systemic
evaluation of social, economic, and natural resource issues of the Mississippi
River watershed; (2) Identify opportunities for integration of conservation
and restoration efforts to address systemic issues such as hypoxia, coastal
loss, and conservation and restoration of migratory bird habitats; and
(3) Identify critical information needs necessary for broad-scale conservation
efforts. This symposium will also serve as the inaugural Lower Mississippi
River Alluvial Valley symposium that will be conducted as a stand-alone
symposium on an annual basis in subsequent years. Symposium
SS02: Sustainable Freshwater Systems: Changing Landscapes and Interdisciplinary
Challenges. Organizers: Elizabeth R. Blood Presentations in this session will present successful examples of holistic approaches to freshwater wetland management and restoration, with special focus on examples from the lower Mississippi River alluvial floodplain. New understanding of biogeochemical cycling in wetlands of the Mid South will be presented. In scaling up to a landscape perspective, examples of successful regional and international agreements will be described, and evaluated. In addition, successful mechanisms for incorporation of emerging knowledge into decision-making, and tested examples of approaches to including knowledge when and where appropriate are provided. Leadership in wetland science is applauded on all levels [local, regional, national, and/or international]. One critical challenge for the 21st century is developing a process that incorporates emerging knowledge into effective management and policy. As never before, wetland scientists will be called upon to take on new professional opportunities and continue to collaborate with partners from varied backgrounds and experiences. Symposium
SS03: The Pantanal: Scientific and Institutional Challenges in Management
of a Large and Complex Wetland Ecosystem Organizers: Antonio Augusto Rossotto
Ioris
Symposium
SS04: Wetland Stewardship: North American Experience Organizers: Ken Cox Francisco Abarca Stewardship is emerging as a pivotal element in global, regional and national strategies for sustainable use of ecosystem resources. The Secretary General of the United Nations at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in early September 2002 highlighted the relationship of stewardship to sustainable development and called for a "season for stewardship". The three countries in North America each have significant experience applicable to their wetland resources involving local communities, volunteerism and government initiative. This workshop will draw together some of this North American experience to draw lessons for distribution. A set of teaching tools for wetland managers and a publication of a selected set of case studies are possible outcomes. Objectives of the symposium includes the following: (1) To present invited papers reporting on new developments in wetland stewardship policy and programs drawing on Canada, Mexico and the United States and possibly small island states in the Caribbean; (2) To develop practical recommendations for fostering initiatives supporting wetland stewardship in the Americas.
Organizers: Russell Joe Bellmer This session will contain presentations describing the process, design, planning, corrective actions, and implementation of community-based projects. NOAA Fisheries has developed an elaborate community-based program that links Federal and private funding with citizen sectors. The program is currently associated with more than 600 funded efforts throughout the United States' coastal regions. Overall, this community-based program is designed to encourage local efforts to restore coastal habitats and promote natural resource stewardship, and has forged partnerships with Federal agencies, states, local governments, non-governmental and nonprofit organizations, businesses, industry, and schools. Examples of some of the projects supported through community-based initiatives include: submerged aquatic vegetation restoration, fish passage construction, invasive plant removal, salt marsh restoration, oyster restoration, riparian habitat restoration, and anadromous fish habitat restoration. Sound science-based monitoring is a component of most of these efforts, and research staff have provided input to monitoring plan development and have participated in the monitoring where appropriate. These efforts have greatly improved restoration project design and implementation, identifying corrective management actions to insure that fishery habitat benefits are being realized. The proposed session will be introduced with an overview of the NOAA Community-based Restoration Program. Subsequent presentations will demonstrate the many linkages between federal and private sectors, sound science and resource management needs, design expectations, and ecological benefits inherent in community-based restoration.
Organizers: Dr. Keith Edwards Dr. Steve Travis Mr. Chris Pease The use of dredged sediment has been an important component of wetland creation for many years. In some areas where navigation maintenance dredging re-occurs on a set schedule, marshes created from dredged sediment are becoming increasingly important not only as individuals, but also over a landscape scale. In such areas, a series of marshes of different ages exist which can be used in assessing restoration success, development of vegetation and faunal communities, and changing soil and elevation dynamics. Also, careful design in the placement of individual dredged sediment marsh "cells" within the landscape may provide "higher order" benefits such as management of salt water intrusion into other portions of large marsh systems. Clearly, there is need to assess the effectiveness of using dredge sediment in marsh creation at different spatial scales. This symposium will address the "success" of estuarine wetland creation in terms of: a) population dynamics and genetic diversity of dominant plant species, b) succession in plant community dominance, c) effects of elevation and sediment characters (grain size, organic matter, nutrients, etc.), d) development of invertebrate, avian, and mammal populations, and e) use in addressing landscape-scale wetland problems. Symposium
SSO7: Wetlands in Urban Watersheds: Connections and Context Principal Organizer: Co-organizers: Urban landscapes are a mixture of land uses and land cover types including commercial and residential development, native and regenerated forests, wetlands, and riparian habitats. Conversion of wetlands and surrounding landscapes to urban land uses causes numerous impacts on wetland functions including increased flooding (flood storage function), increased loading of nutrients, sediments, and metals to water bodies (water quality functions), loss of open space (recreation), habitat (biotic functions), and biodiversity (biotic functions). The high degree of disturbance by humans as a result of increasing urbanization creates unique challenges to understanding and managing wetlands in urban watersheds. The objective of this symposium is to bring together scientists, resource managers, policy analysts, and stakeholders to better understand the role of wetlands in urban environments. This is an important aspect of the conference theme, Wetland Stewardship: Changing Landscapes and Interdisciplinary Challenges.
Organizer:
Jacoby Carter Nutria (a.k.a. coypu, Myocastor coypus) is an aquatic rodent, originally from South America, that has been widely introduced around the world for their fur and to a lessor extent, to control aquatic weeds. In many regions they have become nuisance species and have been implicated in wetland loss through a process called eatout. Even though the nutria is considered and important problem in various marsh systems around the world, there has not been a symposium to bring together nutria researchers to discuss the problems and approaches in at least 10 years. Currently wetland managers in the United States are re-evaluating their strategies for nutria management. In Maryland they are trying to develop an eradication strategy while in Louisiana the emphasis is on management through trapping and an incentive program. This symposium will bring together researchers and managers to discuss the current status of nutria, their impacts, proposed and ongoing control strategies and research programs and approaches with an emphasis on work being done in Maryland and Louisiana. Symposium
SSO9: Invasive Species in Wetlands: the Scaled Integration of Approaches
from DNA Fingerprinting to Ecosystem-level GIS Dr. Douglas J. Meffert
This session will include a variety of sessions that address the latest techniques for identification, tracking, predicting, and managing aquatic invasive (non-indigenous) species that threaten wetland ecosystems. While some sessions may focus on species-specific issues, others will focus on techniques with multiple species applications for tracking the entry and future movement pathways for invasive species (e.g., geographic information systems, molecular ecology approaches for mapping genetic drift, and societal perceptions). Symposium
SS10: Students: What You Need to Know for Our Field's Future Paul DuBowy In keeping with the Society of Wetland Scientists' desire to provide more education/outreach activities for student members, the SWS Education and Outreach committee will conduct a symposium, for students, designed to help them navigate various steps and pitfalls of graduate school. Speakers tentatively will address important issues, including: Choosing a project and formulating hypotheses; Experimental design, data collection, and statistical analysis; Grantsmanship; Thesis/manuscript write-up and publication; Post-doc? Who needs one?; Finding a job at a college/university/agency/consulting company; Canadian perspectives; and PWS Certification: what's in it for me? The workshop will be followed by a student mixer which will allow students an opportunity to meet with speakers, members of the SWS Executive Board, and prospective employers.
Dr. Enrique Reyes
Dr. Ana Laura The Gulf of Mexico is the largest enclosed sea in the Americas with its main communication through the Caribbean Sea. Severe impacts have occurred as human population demands have increased for land use and resources in these coastal ecosystems. Examples include eutrophication, toxic algal blooms, hypoxia, and overfishing. These environmental problems have the potential to extend well beyond physiographic boundaries. In order to adequately address these problems a response has to be created in which scientific, managerial and general public involvement must be aimed towards the overall sustainability of these wetland and coastal ecosystems. This session will provide a forum for the presentation on the latest efforts from the scientific and managerial communities to confront the challenges in restoration and sustainability of wetlands in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. Potential contributors include experts in both, scientific restoration as well as natural resource management. Symposium
SS12: New Directions in Wetland Assessment
The science of wetland assessment continues to evolve from the foundations established by techniques such as Wetland Evaluation Technique (WET), the Hydrogeomorphic Assessment (HGM), and the Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI). Development of new assessment techniques is being driven both by emerging technological capabilities and the needs of scientists, planners, and policy makers. The suite of wetland assessment techniques can be organized into a tiered system, with Tier I assessments focusing on resource inventories, Tier II focusing on relatively rapid techniques and those that can be applied to regional scale assessments, and Tier III focusing on more intensive site-specific evaluations. Recent advances in wetland assessment have mainly been in landscape-scale or in rapid assessment methodologies (i.e. Tier II). Presenters in this session will discuss new techniques/methodologies, present case studies, and summarize recent lessons learned. |
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