Wetland And Riparian Areas Of The Intermountain West

Wetlands and riparian areas between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada are incredibly diverse and valuable habitats. More than 80 percent of the wildlife species in this intermountain region depend on these wetlands—which account for less than 2 percent of the land area—for their survival. At the same time, the wetlands also serve the water needs of ranchers and farmers, recreationists, vacation communities, and cities. It is no exaggeration to call water the "liquid gold" of the West, and the burgeoning human demands on this scarce resource make it imperative to understand and properly manage the wetlands and riverine areas of the Intermountain West. This book offers land managers, biologists, and research scientists a state-of-the-art survey of the ecology and management practices of wetland and riparian areas in the Intermountain West. Twelve articles examine such diverse issues as laws and regulations affecting these habitats, the unique physiographic features of the region, the importance of wetlands and riparian areas to fish, wildlife, and livestock, the ecological function of these areas, their value to humans, and the methods to evaluate these habitats. The authors also address the human impacts on the land from urban and suburban development, mining, grazing, energy extraction, recreation, water diversions, and timber harvesting and suggest ways to mitigate such impacts.

This annotated bibliography contains 1,905 citations from professional journals, symposia, workshops, proceedings, technical reports, and other sources. The intent of this compilation was to: (1) assemble, to the extent possible, all available and accessible publications relating to riparian management within a single source or document; (2) provide managers, field biologists, researchers, and others, a point of access for locating scientific literature relevent to their specific interest; and (3) provide, under one cover, a comprehensive collection of annotated publications that could dessiminate basic information relative to the status of our knowledge.

Many changessome discouraging, others hopefulhave occurred in the Rocky Mountain region since the first edition of this widely acclaimed book was published. Wildlife habitat has become more fragmented, once-abundant sage grouse are now scarce, and forest fires occur more frequently. At the same time, wolves have been successfully reintroduced, and new approaches to conservation have been adopted. For this updated and expanded Second Edition, the authors provide a highly readable synthesis of research undertaken in the past two decades and address two important questions: How can ecosystems be used so that future generations benefit from them as we have? How can we anticipate and adapt to climate changes while conserving biological diversity?