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You are browsing all eNewsletter articles for the Assateague Island National Seashore: Natural Resource Condition Assessment project.
Wednesday, December 17 was the kick-off meeting for the Assateague Island National Seashore assessment project. The meeting was attended by staff from IAN (Bill Dennison, Tim Carruthers, Michael Williams, and Jane Thomas) and Horn Point Laboratory (Tom Fisher and Greg Radcliffe), as well as National Park Service personnel, with the aim of categorizing habitats within the park and identifying appropriate data sets and sources to begin the assessment.
IAN and UMCES researchers attended the biennial Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation's conference in Daytona Beach, Florida in early November 2011. This international conference brings together all the diverse disciplines within coastal and estuarine science, such as geochemistry, physical oceanography, biological systems, management, and education. Several IAN researchers presented on their integrated assessments of Baltimore Harbor, National Park Service parks, and the Great Barrier Reef, as well as attended plenary and poster sessions.
Assateague Island National Seashore with lands and waters in Maryland and Virginia receives some two million visitors per year. After determining key habitats on Assateague Island, potential indicators were identified and data sourced. Attainment of reference condition was assessed for each metric and summarized by habitat and ultimately for the whole park. Based on these key findings, management recommendations were developed. Overall, the natural resources of Assateague Island National Seashore were assessed to be in fair condition. While salt marsh, forest and shrubland habitats were assessed to be in degraded condition, inland wetlands, dunes and grasslands were assessed as fair, bay subtidal and mudflats, beach and intertidal to be in good condition and Atlantic subtidal to be in very good condition.
Further information: www.ian.umces.edu
