Establishment and Monitoring of Marsh Vegetation in a Wetland Mitigation Project

Monitoring of approximately 400 acres of wetland mitigation areas associated with construction of a 900 acre off-line reservoir began in the spring of 2005. Prior to the initiation of monitoring, a pilot project was performed to assess the number of quadrats required for adequate sampling. One hundred and four herbaceous plant species were recorded from created marshes in the fall 2006 monitoring event. Nuisance and exotic species coverage in the created marshes has been very low, usually less than 5%. Desirable wetland plant coverage has varied with seasonal hydrology but is progressing well toward the permit success criteria. Seed source and hydrologic gradients have played a role in the recruitment and establishment of both native and exotic species. The dominant herbaceous species present in a subset of the wetland creation areas analyzed had high affinity (in terms of species composition) with the impact wetlands that provided donor muck, arid moderate affinity with adjacent enhancement wetlands.