Padre Island National Seashore: Natural Resource Condition Assessment
Amberg S, Nadeau A, Kilkus K, Gardner S, Drazkowski B. 2014. Padre Island National Seashore: Natural Resource Condition Assessment. Natural Resource Report. NPS/PAIS/NRR—2014/747. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
The objectives of this assessment are to evaluate and report on current conditions of key park resources, to evaluate critical data and knowledge gaps, and to highlight selected existing stressors and emerging threats to resources or processes. For the purpose of this NRCA, staff from the National Park Service (NPS) and Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota – GeoSpatial Services (SMUMN GSS) identified key resources, referred to as “components” in the project. The selected components include natural resources and processes that are currently of the greatest concern to park management at PAIS. The final project framework contains 17 resource components, each featuring discussions of measures, stressors, and reference conditions. Current condition was not able to be determined for 12 of the 17 components (70.5%) due to these data gaps. For the five components with sufficient available data, the overall condition varied. These components include colonial waterbirds, water quality, air quality, dark night skies, and sea turtles. All five components were determined to be of moderate concern based on available data. Sea turtles, air quality, and dark night skies all had stable trends, while colonial waterbirds was determined to have a declining trend in resource condition. Detailed discussion of these designations is presented in Chapters 4 and 5 of this report. Several park-wide threats and stressors influence the condition of priority resources in PAIS. Those of primary concern include extreme weather events (e.g., hurricanes, tropical storms, and drought), relative sea level rise, energy development within and around the park (i.e., oil and gas drilling, wind farms), and human impacts (i.e., vehicular and pedestrian traffic). Understanding these threats, and how they relate to the condition of these resources, can help the NPS prioritize management objectives and better focus conservation strategies to maintain the health and integrity of park ecosystems.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Amberg, Shannon; Nadeau, Andy; Kilkus, Kathy; Gardner, Sarag; Drazkowski, Barry
- Date of Issue
- 2014-01
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- GULN , NRSS , PAIS
- Keywords
- Air Quality, Algal Mats of Mud Flats, Amphibians, Coastal Dunes and Beaches, Colonial Waterbirds, Condition assessment, Coyotes, Dark Night Skies, Emergent wetland and pond communities, Indicators, Macroinvertebrates, Migratory bird species, Natural Resources, NRCA, Reptiles, Resident bird species, Resource condition, Sea Turtles, Seagrass community, Small Mammals, Stressors, Terrestrial vegetative communities, Threats, Trends, Water Quality