Wetlands

Principal Investigators: T.Burton and A.Smucker

Watersheds that contain large areas in wetlands are less subject to flooding and have better water quality than watersheds with little area in wetlands.Thus,one goal of the watershed project is to document existing wetlands and begin the planning process to restore and create wetlands at strategic areas of the campus.

Strategy :

• Characterization of existing wetlands to include a biological assessment,chemical assessment,soils inventory and hydrogeological assessment of existing wetlands and areas that connect or could connect to each  wetland.
• Land use around each wetland area to be included in the inventory.
• The potential for each of these natural and created or restored wetlands in education,conservation and as demonstration projects for use in water quality,conservation biology,etc.will be assessed.
• The fragmentation of natural areas on campus and the location of the wetlands in relation to these fragments offer the possibility of using these wetlands and fragments to determine needs for connectivity,buffer areas,and a variety of other concepts that are integral to conservation biology.

Assessment :

• Identification of potential demonstration sites using the information collected from the inventory process.
• Initial site sampling which will include the intensive soil sampling and topography of the landscape.Dr.A.Smucker will lead the soil sampling activities and through a review of the literature and data collected during the inventory Dr.Burton`s crew wil provide projections of appropriate startegies to introduce plants and animals into the wetland.
• Collaborators from Landscape Architecture,Biosystems or Civil Engineering and possibly outside contractors  will be sought to design wetland systems and prepare engineer drawings of these designs.

Every effort is also being made to integrate wetlands site construction or restoration activities to construction plans for parking structures on campus.

Progress Report 
Dr.Thomas burton along with his students,during the spring of 2001, sampled a total of 18 wetland and pond sites on the campus of Michigan State University. Of these sites, 9 were classified as vernal pools or ponds and 9 were classified as wetlands. Sampling began in May and continued until the end of June.To read the report of the progress click the title

Data Sets

Wetland Saturation Data
Zn Metal Site Data
2001 MSU Campus Activity Trap Data
Campus Wetlands
MSU Wetlands 2001
MSU Wetland Invertebrate Data

Presentation 
To get a general overview of Wetlands on campus click the link for Powerpoint Presentation.