El Malpais National Monument: Natural resource condition assessment
Valentine-Darby P, Mathis A, Struthers K, Shorrock D, Baril L, Chambers N. 2016. El Malpais National Monument: Natural resource condition assessment. Natural Resource Report. NPS/SCPN/NRR—2016/1301. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
The Natural Resource Condition Assessment (NRCA) Program, administered by National Park Service’s (NPS) Water Resources Division, aims to provide documentation about current conditions of important park natural resources through a spatially explicit, multidisciplinary synthesis of existing scientific data and knowledge. The NRCA for El Malpais National Monument began November 2015, and 17 focal study natural resources were chosen for the park’s NRCA. These resources were organized into three categories: landscape-scale, supporting environment (i.e., physical resources), and biological integrity, which included wildlife and vegetation topics. The landscape scale resources included viewshed, night sky, and soundscape. The viewshed and soundscape resources were in good condition, given the fact that the monument is located in a rural setting and surrounded by large areas of protected land. The night sky resource was in good to moderate condition and is unfortunately impacted by Albuquerque New Mexico’s light pollution at some locations throughout the monument. The monument’s supporting physical environment resource topics included air quality, surface geology, caves and cave ice, and tinajas. The condition for all of these resources was moderate except for caves and cave ice where no condition determination was made due to the lack of data. The biological integrity resources included four vegetation topics and exotic plants and five wildlife topics, which included cave ecology and organisms, mammals, bats, birds, and herpetofauna. The vegetation resources were in good condition, except for distinct vegetation and exotic plants, which are unknown at this time. The only wildlife topic condition rating was for bats, which was good. The remaining wildlife conditions are currently unknown due to lack of recent data.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Valentine-Darby, Patricia; Mathis, Allyson; Struthers, Kimberly; Shorrock, Donna; Baril, Lisa; Chambers, Nina
- Date of Issue
- 2016-09
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- ELMA , NRSS , SCPN