Abstract
A watershed-based assessment of wetland impacts and compensatory mitigation was conducted for the Cuyahoga River Watershed (CRW) in northeastern Ohio, USA, to explore the effectiveness of wetland mitigation regulations and any resulting cumulative changes to wetland and landscape structure. Mitigation projects from 23 Section 401 certifications and Ohio Isolated Wetland permits were evaluated for permit compliance, wetland structure, and landscape context. Although there was a net gain in wetland area as a result of the 23 permits, the CRW experienced a net loss of wetland acreage due to the exportation to mitigation banks located outside the watershed. The majority of projects (67%) that restored or created wetlands independently (not at a mitigation bank) were not successful at meeting permit requirements in terms of wetland area. The comparison of impacted and mitigation wetland vegetation types revealed an increase in open-water/emergent wetland area and a decrease in area of scrub/shrub and forested wetlands, along with a decrease in the number of wetlands from 134 impacted wetlands to 65 mitigation wetlands. Impacted wetlands were significantly smaller than replacement wetlands. Landscape composition surrounding the wetlands was highly variable, varying from 17%–75% natural land uses and from 18%–82% human land uses. We suggest that an improvement in compliance with permit requirements is necessary. Current wetland policy allows for the exportation of wetlands for mitigation purposes, which can result in the loss of wetlands from some hydrologic units. The consideration of wetland structure needs to be incorporated into the regulatory process to avoid a shift in wetland types that are present. Finally, instead of reviewing projects on a site-by-site basis, a landscape approach should be taken in order to avoid the loss of upland-wetland heterogeneity and the placement of mitigation wetlands in degraded landscapes.
Similar content being viewed by others
Literature Cited
Amezaga, J. M., L. Santamaria, and A. J. Green. 2002. Biotic wetland connectivity — supporting a new approach for wetland policy. Acta Oecologica 23: 213–22.
Balcombe, C. K., J. T. Anderson, R. H. Fortney, and W. S. Kordek. 2005a. Wildlife use of mitigation and reference wetlands in West Virginia. Ecological Engineering 25: 85–99.
Balcombe, C. K., J. T. Anderson, R. H. Fortney, and W. S. Kordek. 2005b. Aquatic macroinvertebrate assemblages in mitigated and natural wetlands. Hydrobiologia 541: 175–88.
Balcombe, C. K., J. T. Anderson, R. H. Fortney, J. S. Rentch, W. N. Grafton, and W. S. Kordek. 2005c. A comparison of plant communities in mitigation and reference wetlands in the mid-Appalachians. Wetlands 25: 130–42.
Bedford, B. L. 1996. The need to define hydrologic equivalence at the landscape scale for freshwater wetland mitigation. Ecological Applications 6: 57–68.
Bedford, B. L. and E. M. Preston. 1988. Developing the scientific basis for assessing cumulative effects of wetland loss and degradation on landscape functions: status, perspectives, and prospects. Environmental Management 12: 751–71.
Breaux, A., S. Cochrane, J. Evens, M. Martindale, B. Pavlik, L. Suer, and D. Benner. 2005. Wetland ecological and compliance assessments in the San Francisco Bay Region, California, USA. Journal of Environmental Management 74: 217–37.
Brooks, R. P., D. H. Wardrop, C. A. Cole, and D. A. Campbell. 2005. Are we purveyors of wetland homogeneity? a model of degradation and restoration to improve wetland mitigation performance. Ecological Engineering 24: 331–40.
Brown, S. C. and P. L. M. Veneman. 2001. Effectiveness of compensatory wetland mitigation in Massachusetts, USA. Wetlands 21: 508–18.
Colburn, E. A. 2004. Vernal Pools: Natural History and Conservation. The McDonald & Woodward Publishing Company, Blacksburg, VA, USA.
Cole, A. C. and D. Shafer. 2002. Section 404 wetland mitigation and permit success criteria in Pennsylvania, USA, 1986–1999. Environmental Management 30: 508–15.
Craft, C., S. Broome, and C. Campbell. 2002. Fifteen years of vegetation and soil development after brackish-water marsh creation. Restoration Ecology 10: 248–58.
Croonquist, M. J. and R. P. Brooks. 1993. Effects of habitat disturbances on bird communities in riparian corridors. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 48: 65–70.
Darnell, T. M. and E. H. Smith. 2004. Avian use of natural and created salt marsh in Texas, USA. Waterbirds 27: 355–61.
Ehrenfeld, J. G. and J. P. Schneider. 1991. Chamaecyparis thyoides wetlands and suburbanization: effects on hydrology, water quality and plant community composition. Journal of Applied Ecology 28: 467–90.
Environmental Law Institute. 2004. National Symposium on Compensatory Mitigation and the Watershed Approach, 19–21 May 2004. Environmental Law Institute, Washington, DC, USA.
Faulkner, S. 2004. Urbanization impacts on the structure and function of forested wetlands. Urban Ecosystems 7: 89–106.
Gwin, S. E., M. E. Kentula, and P. W. Shaffer. 1999. Evaluating the effects of wetland regulation through hydrogeomorphic classification and landscape profiles. Wetlands 19: 477–89.
Hoeltje, S. M. and C. A. Cole. 2007. Losing function through wetland mitigation in Central Pennsylvania, USA. Environmental Management 39: 385–402.
Houlahan, J. E. and C. S. Findlay. 2003. The effects of adjacent land use on wetland amphibian species richness and community composition. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 60: 1078–94.
Houlahan, J. E. and C. S. Findlay. 2004. Estimating the critical distance at which adjacent land-use degrades wetland water and sediment quality. Landscape Ecology 19: 677–90.
Houlahan, J. E., P. A. Keddy, K. Makkay, and C. S. Findlay. 2006. The effects of adjacent land use on wetland species richness and community composition. Wetlands 26: 79–96.
International Joint Commission. 1988. Revised Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1978, as amended by Protocol signed November 18, 1987. Consolidated by the International Joint Commission, United States and Canada.
Johnson, P. A., D. L. Mock, A. McMillan, L. Driscoll, and T. Hruby. 2002. Washington State wetland mitigation evaluation study: phase 2: evaluating success. Publication No. 02-06-009. Washington State Department of Ecology, Olympia, WA, USA.
Johnson, P. A., D. L. Mock, E. J. Teachout, and A. McMillan. 2000. Washington State wetland mitigation evaluation study: phase 1: compliance. Publication No. 00-06-016. Washington State Department of Ecology, Olympia, WA, USA.
Keagy, J. C., S. J. Schreiber, and D. A. Cristol. 2005. Replacing sources with sinks: when do populations go down the drain? Restoration Ecology 13: 529–35.
Kelly, N. M. 2001. Changes to the landscape pattern of coastal North Carolina wetlands under the Clean Water Act, 1984–1992. Landscape Ecology 16: 3–15.
Kentula, M. E., S. E. Gwin, and S. M. Pierson. 2004. Tracking changes in wetlands with urbanization: sixteen years of experience in Portland, Oregon, USA. Wetlands 24: 734–43.
Kentula, M. E., J. C. Sifneos, J. W. Good, M. Rylko, and K. Kunz. 1992. Trends and patterns in section 404 permitting requiring compensatory mitigation in Oregon and Washington, USA. Environmental Management 16: 109–19.
Kettlewell, C. I. 2005. An assessment of wetland impacts and compensatory mitigation in the Cuyahoga River Watershed, Ohio, USA. M.S. Thesis. The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
Knutson, M. G., J. R. Sauer, D. A. Olsen, M. J. Mossman, L. M. Hemesath, and M. J. Lannoo. 1999. Effects of landscape composition and wetland fragmentation on frog and toad abundance and species richness in Iowa and Wisconsin, USA. Conservation Biology 13: 1437–46.
McGarigal, K., S. A. Cushman, M. C. Neel, and E. Ene. 2002. FRAGSTATS: Spatial Pattern Analysis Program for Categorical Maps. Computer software program produced by the authors at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Available at: http://www.umass.edu/landeco/research/fragstats/fragstats.html.
Minkin, P. and R. Ladd. 2003. Success of corps-required wetland mitigation in New England. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District, Waltham, MA, USA.
Morgan, K. L. and T. H. Roberts. 2003. Characterization of wetland mitigation projects in Tennessee, USA. Wetlands 23: 65–69.
Porej, D. 2003. An inventory of Ohio wetland compensatory mitigation. Final report to U.S. EPA Grant No. CD975762010. Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Division of Surface Water, Wetland Ecology Group, Columbus, OH, USA.
Porej, D., M. Micacchion, and T. E. Hetherington. 2004. Core terrestrial habitat for conservation of local populations of salamanders and wood frogs in agricultural landscapes. Biological Conservation120: 399–409.
Race, M. S. and M. S. Fonseca. 1996. Fixing compensatory mitigation: what will it take? Ecological Applications 6: 94–101.
Reppert, R. 1992. National wetland mitigation banking study: wetlands mitigation banking concepts. IWR Report 92-WMB-1. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Water Resources Support Center, Institute for Water Resources, Alexandria, VA, USA.
Semlitsch, R. D. and J. R. Bodie. 1998. Are small, isolated wetlands expendable? Conservation Biology 12: 1129–33.
Semlitsch, R. D. and J. R. Bodie. 2003. Biological criteria for buffer zones around wetlands and riparian habitats for amphibians and reptiles. Conservation Biology 17: 1219–28.
Sifneos, J. C., M. E. Kentula, and P. Price. 1992. Impacts of section 404 permits requiring compensatory mitigation of freshwater wetlands in Texas and Arkansas. Texas Journal of Science 44: 475–85.
Tilton, D. L. 1995. Integrating wetlands into planned landscapes. Landscape and Urban Planning 32: 205–09.
U.S. ACOE (United States Army Corps of Engineers). 1987. Corps of engineers wetland delineation manual, Technical report Y-87-1. U.S. Army Corps of Engineer Waterways Experiment Station, Vicksburg, MS, USA.
USEPA-USACE (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers). 1990. Memorandum of agreement between the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Army concerning the determination of mitigation under the Clean Water Act Section 404(b)(1) guidelines. USEPA, Washington, DC, USA.
Vos, C. C. and A. H. P. Stumpel. 1995. Comparison of habitatisolation parameters in relation to fragmented distribution patterns in the treefrog (Hylla arborea). Landscape Ecology 11: 203–14.
West, T. L., L. M. Clough, and W. G. Ambrose, Jr. 2000. Assessment of function in an oligohaline environment: lessons learned by comparing created and natural habitats. Ecological Engineering 15: 303–21.
Zedler, J. B. 1996. Ecological issues in wetland mitigation: an introduction to the forum. Ecological Applications 6: 33–37.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kettlewell, C.I., Bouchard, V., Porej, D. et al. An assessment of wetland impacts and compensatory mitigation in the Cuyahoga River Watershed, Ohio, USA. Wetlands 28, 57–67 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1672/07-01.1
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1672/07-01.1