Adaptive Wet Meadow Habitat Restoration in the Gunnison Basin
Maxwell Sawyer1
1Western Colorado University Master of Environmental Management Program, Gunnison, CO, USA; maxwell.sawyer@western.edu
Since 2012 the Upper Gunnison Basin Meadow and Riparian Restoration Program has been working to enhance ecosystem reliance by restoring lost hydrologic and ecological function in degraded riparian habitats. Restoration efforts benefit the threatened Gunnison sage-grouse, local ungulate populations, cattle and sheep ranching operations, and local water tables. Between 2012 and 2019 the project restored over 24 stream miles and built over 1,900 structures with over 120 more structures added in 2020 and 2021. The key to successful riparian restoration work in dry environments like the Gunnison Basin is to tailor restoration efforts to the local landscape at each site because each restoration site contains its own unique characteristics and challenges and there is no single restoration approach that works at every site. To enact restoration in this manner, the landscape must be read and interpreted in order to determine the ways in which water moves across the landscape before restoration is implemented and how restoration will affect these patterns of movement. Riparian and wet meadow ecosystems are a small but critical habitat for species residing in the Gunnison Basin, including the threatened Gunnison sage-grouse, and since much of the land area in these critical habitats has been heavily impacted and degraded by a variety of past land uses restoration is critical for slowing habitat loss and building resiliency to climate induced changes to temperature and precipitation patterns. The restoration structures implemented across the basin since 2012 have been based on the low-tech restoration process outlined by Bill Zeedyk and have since been modified and added to meet the needs of the habitat in the Gunnison Basin. As this restoration project continues to expand and evolve project managers and participants continue to build the ‘recipe book’ of riparian restoration in the Gunnison Basin and use lessons learned from restoration efforts to increase the effectiveness of future restoration efforts both in terms of specific site characteristics and changes to climatic factors. Information in this presentation will focus on work completed and lessons learned at the Monson Gulch restoration site east of Gunnison, Colorado where over 50 restoration structures were built re-wetting roughly six acres of riparian habitat during the 2021 field season. Attendees to this presentation will learn about the Monson Gulch restoration site in detail, lessons learned during the 2021 field season, and how the restoration program continuously works to increase the effectiveness of restoration efforts through trial and error and various forms of monitoring.