Date of this Version
Biological Report 87(11) September 1987.
The National Ecology Center of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is supporting a series of field research studies to document relationships between hydric soils and wetland vegetation in selected wetlands throughout the United States. This study is one of that series. It is a continuation of the FWS effort, begun by Wentworth and Johnson (1986), to develop a procedure using vegetation to designate wetlands based on the indicator status of wetland vegetation as described by the FWS "National List of Plants that Occur in Wetlands" (Reed 1986a). This list classifies vascular plants of the U.S. into one of five categories according to their natural frequency of occurrence in wetlands. Concurrent with the development of the wetland plant list, the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) developed the "National List of Hydric Soils" (SCS 1985a). Studies supported by the National Ecology Center quantitatively compare associations of plant species, designated according to their hydric nature using the Wentworth and Johnson (1986) procedure, with the hydric nature of soils according to their designation on the SCS hydric soils list. The studies are being conducted across moisture gradients at a variety of wetland sites throughout the U.S. Several studies have been modified to obtain information on groundwater hydrology.
These studies were conceived in 1984 and implemented in 1985 in response to internal planning efforts of the FWS. They parallel, to some extent, ongoing efforts by the SCS to delineate wetlands for Section 1221 of the Food Security Act of 1985 (the swampbuster provision). The SCS and FWS provided joint guidance and direction in the development of the Wentworth and Johnson (1986) procedure, and the SCS currently is testing a procedure that combines hydric soils and the Wentworth and Johnson procedure for practical wetland delineation. The efforts of both agencies are complimentary and are being conducted in close cooperation.
The primary objectives of these studies are to (1) assemble a quantitative data base of wetland plant community dominance and codominance for determining the relationship between wetland plants and hydric soils; (2) test various delineation algorithms based on the indicator status of plants against independent measures of hydric character, primarily hydric soils; and (3) test, in some instances, the correlation with groundwater hydrology. The results of these studies also can be used, with little or no supplementary hydrologic information, to compare wetland delineation methods of the Corps of Engineers (1987) and the Environmental Protection Agency (Sipple 1987).