Sandscape Restoration: Long-Term Summary

Burkman, Peggy

Apostle Islands National Lakeshore supports a variety of sandscapes or geological formations that develop over millennia from long-shore sediments accumulating in quiet waters. Sandscapes have been popular with visitors for decades and long-term sandscape monitoring identified this impact to sandscape vegetation but also revealed the potential for impacts from climate induced changes in temperatures and wind speeds over the lake. We initiated a restoration program in 2001 to address these impacts and eventually completed restoration projects on seven sandscapes in the park. Early efforts informed successive projects in an adaptive management manner regarding timing, logistics, planting, and monitoring and are shared in this report.