For the past 6 years The Wetlands Conservancy (TWC) and Institute for Natural Resources (INR) have been creating tools to support statewide wetland conservation and restoration efforts by collecting historic and current information on the conditions of Oregon’s wetlands. The objective of this work is to support local government, NGO’s and regulatory programs and incentives.
In 2009 (and updated in 2012), we created a priority wetland map and database for the Willamette Valley that identified priority areas for wetland conservation and restoration. State and federal agencies and private landowners involved in wetland regulation and mitigation requested that we do a similar effort for the entire state. For this larger statewide approach we decided to attribute all the wetlands based on a methodology from the Virginia Natural Heritage Program, scoring all wetlands in each Oregon watershed unit (watershed units are typically HUC4 units) according to their conservation status, ecosystem services provided, and both site-specific and landscape-level conditions. Using this information, the tool can then help identify and evaluate the best wetlands in each watershed unit for restoration and mitigation potential.
For more information visit the tool at http://oregonexplorer.info/wetlands/WetlandConservation/NeedsandPriorities.