Wild Utah Project's Riparian Science and Monitoring Program

The problem. In the intermountain West, riparian areas are perhaps the single most important areas on which to focus conservation and restoration efforts. Although riparian areas represent less than one percent of the land within Utah, they are among the most important and heavily used wildlife habitat in this region. Animals including migratory songbirds, deer, elk and amphibians rely on these riparian corridors for food, cover, breeding habitat and movement corridors. Riparian areas also provide many important functions to humans, from recreation to providing clean and abundant water, to preventing flooding.

Due to increasing pressure from human populations and improper land management strategies, biologists generally believe that most riparian areas fail to meet the needs of wildlife and few are safe to drink from today. In 2006 the Bureau or Land Management, which manages about half of Utah's lands, reported that 35% of their Utah streams could endure a high flow without excessive erosion. This same report found that 30% of these same streams were functioning "at risk" while the condition of 27% of streams was unknown. Missing from this report was information on stream function required for fish, riparian obligate birds, and other dependent wildlife. Even without this information about wildlife, it is clear that many streams are in trouble and in need of restoration efforts.

Wild Utah Project's Solution. While most land managers are aware of the problems riparian areas face on the Colorado Plateau, they have yet to complete surveys that describe which streams meet wildlife needs and which do not. For restoration and protection efforts to succeed, we first need a clear understanding of the current biological health of each stream. Wild Utah Project's development of the Rapid Stream-Riparian Assessment method has, therefore, provided a critical tool to aid the restoration and protection process. Wild Utah Project began seven years ago to develop and test in a number of communities an effective, stakeholder-friendly yet scientifically rigorous method to assess the biological health of streams. Prior to our assessment method, nothing like this existed and as a result, specific information on stream health in our region was incomplete, hampering restoration of those streams in need.

Our riparian assessment method is now being used in assessment and restoration efforts by the Arizona Riparian Council, the Friends of the Agua Fria National Monument (AZ), the Utah Nature Conservancy, Capitol Reef National Park, and Citizen Groupsin Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah. To give just one example of its use, in 2006 the Mancos Conservation District in southwestern Colorado decided to use our method to conduct a watershed-wide community riparian inventory. The results of the Mancos River watershed inventory were beyond our expectations. Because our riparian assessment method makes common sense and can be conducted by community members with only a couple of days of training, we discovered that this inventory tool was very good at educating people about the affects of specific stream conditions on wildlife and thus, stream health. At the end of the Mancos River survey, nearly half of the adult population of the town of Mancos attended a meeting to hear and discuss the survey results. As a result of that meeting, two landowners offered their property for riparian restoration demonstration projects, which were installed the following year. With our help, the Mancos Valley Watershed Project has identified priority locations and solutions for stream restoration and have gotten them underway.

With a proven tool, Wild Utah Project and our partners are now ready to apply the Rapid Stream Riparian Assessment method in communities across the Colorado Plateau, and use the results to bring change to riparian management.

Here are some of our goals for our riparian program in the coming year:

Goal #1: Assess the watershed health of the Escalante River in southern Utah, with our partners.

• Complete riparian assessments where we've already started work in the basin and continue to engage more private landowners in this effort.
• Help establish a community watershed project in the Escalante River watershed.
• Use the 2011 RSRA Escalante training workshop(s) to foster volunteer assessments in the watershed by agencies, local governments, and other conservation partners.
• Support the community groups in hiring field assessment staff to complete assessments in the Escalante River watersheds.

Goal #2: Continue to use our centralized, web-accessible RSRA database for analyzing and sharing results of RSRA assessments that are continously being conducted across the Colorado Plateau and intermountain West.

• Populate the online, web-accessible RSRA database with completed riparian assessments.
• Analyze and share RSRA survey results with our agency and local community partners.

Goal #3: Implement restoration/protection for priority stream reaches with teams from local communities.

• Involve local communities and conservation partners in identifying priorities for protection and restoration.
• Develop a collaborative restoration work plan.
• Seek funding from a broad number of sources, leveraging unique partnerships (i.e. conservationists plus ranchers) to open opportunities for new sources of funding.