High-quality riverside plant communities to be identified

PENNSYLVANIA — The Pennsylvania Chapter of The Nature Conservancy (TNC), in cooperation with the National Park Service (NPS) and local landowners, will be conducting field surveys in the coming months to assess and prioritize high-quality riparian plant communities along the Delaware River. This work will take place in the 100-year floodplain of the Pennsylvania portion of the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River Corridor, and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

In this region we are currently facing 61 non-native invasive plants that spread and displace native species, threaten native biodiversity and diminish the scenic and recreational qualities of our area. This study seeks to identify relatively unimpacted high-quality riverside plant communities to be prioritized for protection from non-native invasive plants, as feasible. Funding for this study was provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, through their Keystone Recreation, Park, and Conservation Fund.

This effort coincides with the development of maps describing vegetation types for these areas; they can also provide information about overall landscape health, as well as the status and distribution of many non-native invasive plant species of concern. These vegetation maps are part of a larger effort by both states and the National Park Service to describe vegetation regionally and nationally, using a common classification scheme similar to baseline assessments of air, soils, water and other natural resources. For the National Park Service, a vegetation map is one of 12 basic data sets needed by all NPS areas with significant natural resources.

For additional information, see nature.nps.gov/protectingrestoring/im/inventoryandmonitoring.cfm .

The Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River differs from most NPS areas in that the majority of land in the river corridor is privately owned. In locations where TNC staff seeks to assess floodplain vegetation on private property, landowners will be contacted in advance and permission will be sought to access their property.

For more information call 570/729-7842.