Large-Scale Restoration Science

NPWRC is developing, applying, and refining an integrated, process-based, systems model for prairie-pothole wetlands to facilitate forecasts of how climate and land-use change will affect wetland processes and biota. The Pothole Hydrology Linked System Simulator model (PHyLiSS) simulates changes in hydrology, water chemistry, plant communities, invertebrates, and other biota as a result of altered...

Beyond the impacts to jobs and business activities, economics can play an important role in understanding the return on project investments by studying the benefits of project outcomes to society.

The Prairie Pothole Region of the northern Great Plains annually hosts 50–80% of North America’s ducks during the breeding season. Accordingly, there are significant government and private funds that go to conservation for the purposes of improving duck production in the region. The Prairie Pothole Region ecosystem has a number of stressors, intensive agriculture being chief among them. The...

Resource managers are tasked with managing complex systems with inherent uncertainty around how those systems might change with time and respond to management actions in a changing climate. Scenario planning—often implemented as a qualitative, participatory exercise for exploring multiple possible futures—is a valuable tool for addressing uncertainty. At the same time, quantitative information on...

Rising commodity crop prices, increased federal subsidies for biofuels, such as corn-based ethanol and soy-based biodiesel, and reduction in U.S. Farm Bill conservation programs have facilitated rapid land-use changes in the Northern Great Plains (NGP). Although renewable biofuels are touted as a mechanism for increasing energy security and potentially reducing greenhouse gas emissions, little is...

The only self-sustaining population of endangered whooping cranes nests within and near Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada, migrates through the Great Plains, and winters primarily along the Texas Gulf Coast. Our objectives of this collaborative project are to address the entire annual life cycle of this species by advancing knowledge of breeding, wintering, and migration ecology, including...

The Platte River Recovery Implementation Program (PRRIP) partnered with Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center (NPWRC) to study demographics of least terns and piping plovers at the Central Platte River in Nebraska. Due to water management and other alterations, riverine habitat for least terns and piping plovers has become degraded. Least terns and piping plovers, however, have begun breeding...

Midcontinent sandhill cranes occupy a large geographic area of central and western North America and northeastern Asia during breeding, winter, and migration. They are a species representing a unique convergence of multiple user groups with an interest in the continued health of this population. Tens of thousands of people view cranes during spring staging at the Platte River Valley in Nebraska...

Developing effective living shoreline restoration projects that can withstand hurricanes and storms requires a better understanding of how restoration structures reduce the impact of wave and current energy on marsh edges in estuaries and bays. Without this knowledge, existing living shoreline projects and adaptive management measures are more likely to fail, decreasing the possibility for long...

Riparian areas are conspicuous belts of dense, green vegetation along streams and rivers, and can be considered “ribbons of life”. Despite covering less than 2 percent of the land area in the southwestern U.S., riparian areas tend to have high species diversity and population density, making them valuable to managers, scientists, and the public. These unique ecosystems act as a link between dry...

This project seeks to develop tools and datasets that provide insights to the common ground between flood-risk reduction and ecosystem services on large-river floodplains of the Central United States. Floodplains of large rivers are valued for their agricultural productivity and development potential, but recent floods have demonstrated the high costs and lack of resiliency when floodplains are...

Environmentally responsible land management has direct and indirect implications for wildlife, water quality, and air quality in terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems far beyond their extent. Agricultural land use accounts for over 50 percent of the surface area of the contiguous United States. Public recognition that social, aesthetic, and recreational values enhance the traditional uses of...