What the Intermountain Region’s park monitoring networks produced in fiscal year 2021

Cave tours at Timpanogos Cave National Monument appear to change the chemistry of the water that decorates the cave. That is one finding among the work the National Park Service (NPS) Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Division's seven networks in the Intermountain Region reported for fiscal year 2021. The networks track the effects of climate change across parks, supply baseline information and tools for resource management, evaluate new technologies and inspire the next generation of park stewards. They also provide science support for park programs and contribute to the scientific literature.

Caves, grasslands and juniper

• Timpanogos Cave. A water-quality trend analysis by the Northern Colorado Plateau Network suggested that cave visitation affects cave-water chemistry and the potential for cave decorations to form. At Hidden Lake, a decrease in dissolved CO2 matched a new cave management plan and favored the formation of speleothems. With Western Kentucky University and the U.S. Geological Survey, sampling became more frequent during the 2020 COVID-19 closure, and prototype carbon-dioxide sensors were added when tours resumed in 2021. The aim is to understand thresholds of visitor use that support active cave processes.
• Grassland workshops. Following drought workshops in 2018 and 2019, the network was a key partner in an arid-grassland climate-adaptation workshop for staff from Colorado Plateau parks. It tested a menu of strategies to help parks resist, accept or direct change; each park worked a real grassland issue through the framework. A report is available.
• Pinyon-juniper workgroup. Southern Colorado Plateau Network scientists set up a workgroup because the vegetation dominates many park units and poses three problems: thinning to cut wildfire risk is not necessarily appropriate in old-growth stands that are not fire-adapted; more frequent stand-destroying fires have let exotic species invade and hampered regrowth; and traditional satellite metrics do not work in these ecosystems, so there is no way to monitor their vulnerability. Staff continue to look for a replacement vegetation index.

Water, wastewater and drought

• Water balance. Northern Colorado Plateau and Greater Yellowstone Network staff, Mike Tercek and the NPS Climate Change Response Program built GIS layers of 30-year and decadal average water balance at 1-km resolution for the continental U.S., covering 1980 to the present plus 24 projected futures. Recent research indicates much of the western U.S. has become drier since 1980, mainly from rising temperatures, while much of the eastern U.S. has had more evapotranspiration from increased precipitation. In Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, lower-elevation vegetation has recently had more water stress than before and higher-elevation vegetation less.
• Moab wastewater. Network and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency staff studied whether better wastewater treatment cuts unregulated contaminants in discharge to the Colorado River near Arches and Canyonlands. The improved technology produced effluent with fewer detected bioactive contaminants, lower instream bioactivities and higher fish survival, with many pharmaceuticals falling below detection limits.
• Landbirds and drought. Research tracked bird communities in three habitats over 12 years in 11 national parks on the Northern Colorado Plateau. Responses depended on habitat and species traits, so more drought stress is not inherently good or bad for all species; species that breed in several habitats may adapt more easily.

Tools for managers

• Exotic plant dashboard. Data managers for the Southwest Network Collaboration built a mapping dashboard of invasive plant location and density. Because several data steps are automated, results are available as soon as field sampling ends. Access requires an NPS VPN connection and addition to the group by network data staff.
• Saguaro vegetation map. The Sonoran Desert Network published a three-volume vegetation mapping report for Saguaro National Park, describing 97 vegetation associations across its two districts, from low-elevation creosote shrublands to mountaintop Douglas fir forests. Surveyors observed 538 species, added three new species to the park checklist and documented one species believed extirpated from the park.

Image from the National Park Service's page.

• Park support. The Rocky Mountain Network worked on post-fire support at Rocky Mountain National Park, a decision-support tool for annual brome at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument and Northern Great Plains parks, and hydroacoustic monitoring for Clark Fork River remediation at Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site.
• Focused condition assessments. Rocky Mountain and Greater Yellowstone data feed assessments of specific resources, including alpine soil-temperature data from 2008 to 2020 used by the University of Colorado's Doak Lab. The Greater Yellowstone Network took part in assessments of mountain mahogany at Bighorn Canyon, hayfield restoration at Grand Teton and alpine vegetation.
• Youth science collection. Networks contributed to a Frontiers for Young Minds collection, "Taking the Pulse of US National Parks", for readers aged 8 to 15. It will eventually hold 28 articles, will become an eBook for educational institutions around the world, and its editorial team is led by the Greater Yellowstone Network's vegetation ecologist.

Sources

• National Park Service, Inventory and Monitoring Division, "Making an Impact: Long-Term Monitoring of Natural Resources at Intermountain Region National Parks, 2021", https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/i-m-in-the-imr-2021.htm; rewritten in hubnx's own words. The page's publications list and most of its photographs are left out.