Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Maine
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

This project supports recent and ongoing efforts of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in evaluation of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) effort known as the Sustainable Rivers Program (SRP) with a focus on performing the science and monitoring needed to quantify ecosystem responses to effects of USACE reservoir operations. Through this work statement and other activities, SRP seeks to cultivate scientific understanding of connections between reservoir operations and ecosystem responses for select rivers in unique ecoregions around the United States. Development of scientific knowledge is leveraged through implementation of environmental flow prescriptions at reservoirs, which alters land-water interactions thereby stimulating ecosystem responses that can be studied and quantified using field monitoring protocols and analysis. If operational changes are studied, resulting knowledge can be used to improve prescriptions and perpetuate a culture of adaptive management. Monitoring does not need to be exhaustive to be effective and requires constructive, informative, and timely guidance from scientists in the field to dam operators.