Northern Great Plains Network Vital Signs Monitoring Plan

Gitzen, Robert; Wilson, Marcia; Brumm, Joel; Bynum, Mike; Wrede, John; Millspaugh, Joshua; Paintner, Kara

Park managers are increasingly confronted with complex and challenging resource management issues and need a broad-based understanding of the status and trends of park resources for the long-term protection of park ecosystems. The National Park Service has initiated a long-term ecological “Vital Signs” monitoring program to track the overall condition of natural resources in parks and to provide early warning of situations that require intervention. The focus of the program is on assessing status and trends at the level of individual parks, with broader regional or national inference a secondary goal when feasible. The NPS organized the more than 270 parks with significant natural resources into 32 ecoregional Networks. The Northern Great Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network (NGPN) includes 13 park units in North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and eastern Montana. The Network includes Agate Fossil Beds, Devils Tower, Jewel Cave, and Scotts Bluff National Monuments (AGFO, DETO, JECA, and SCBL); Fort Laramie, Fort Union Trading Post, and Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Sites (FOLA, FOUS, and KNRI); Badlands, Theodore Roosevelt, and Wind Cave National Parks (BADL, THRO, and WICA); Missouri National Recreational River (MNRR); Niobrara National Scenic River (NIOB); and Mount Rushmore National Memorial (MORU). The NGPN monitoring program is designed to complement, not replace, existing park and other agency monitoring programs. The first planning steps involved compiling and reviewing relevant scientific information, conducting detailed park scoping to identify the most important resources and issues for each park, and assessing current monitoring by parks and other programs to prioritize gaps in current monitoring and identify opportunities for integrating information across programs. The second step was to develop conceptual ecological models of the predominant ecosystems associated with Network parks, including key ecosystem drivers, stressors, and processes. In addition to helping prioritize monitoring objectives, these models will help interpret and communicate monitoring results to park management, our scientific partners, park visitors, and the public. Using the results of the early planning and design work, Network staff, other NPS experts, and regional scientists ranked and prioritized potential Vital Signs. The result is a list of high-priority Vital Signs that will be monitored by the NGPN, park staff, or collaborating programs and agencies. Chapter 4 provides an overview of how Vital Signs sampling locations are chosen and includes the revisit schedule for sampling each location through time (i.e., sample design). The Network will use data collected from probability samples or censuses (for remote sensing protocols) when possible. For expensive monitoring limited to one or two locations per park we will use nonprobabilistically selected index sites; supplemental sampling and model-based inference will be needed to estimate park-wide trends in these cases. Over the next several years, Network staff and collaborators will develop 12 monitoring protocols that address Vital Signs for which staff will play a lead role in field data collection as well as high-priority Vital Signs (e.g., air quality) being monitored by other programs. Of the 12 protocols, the Network’s top priorities focus on plant community/vegetation composition and structure, and water quality.Managing data and information is a central mission of the NGPN I&M Program involving all Network staff. To make results of monitoring useful to park managers and other audiences, Network staff must employ statistically defensible analyses and communicate the results efficiently. Network staff will compile, analyze, synthesize, and report monitoring results, including data collected by others, to make the data more available and useful.

Northern Great Plains Network Vital Signs Monitoring Plan

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