Ecosystem Task Force
4/17/14
Summary
Summary of Conversation Topics
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Biodiversity Inventory Project outline and collecting related research
Relationship to nitrogen Inventory
Student and other updates
Next Steps
The group identified the following next steps (or commitments) during the meeting:
What
Draft matrix of biodiversity metrics
Begin collecting biodiversity related research projects
Next meeting: May 15, 12:30-2, Dimond 343
Ecosystem Task Force, Meeting Minutes, 4/17/14
Who
El
All
All
By When
Next meeting
ongoing
5/15
1
Ecosystem Task Force
4/17/14
Detailed Notes
Participants
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Tom Ballestero, Professor Civil
Engineering
Doug Bencks, Campus Architect
Jackie Cullen, Program Assistant,
UNHSI
Tom Kelly, Director UNHSI
Steve Eisenhaure, Land Use
Coordinator, COLSA
El Farrell, Project Manager, UNHSI
Fiona Gettinger, Student
Ambassador
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John Hart, Professor, Thompson
School
Mike Palace, Research Asst.
Professor, Earth Systems Research
Meeting chair or facilitator: Doug Bencks, Mike Palace
Biodiversity Inventory
Project Outline
El: background: based on last meeting talking about what we wanted to do and accomplish with
inventory project. Put together a brief outline of what was discussed as purpose, goals, who to
reach and what a timeline might look like. Shared with Doug and Mike and we want to flesh it
out more today.
Also started to put together a spreadsheet that could collect what’s already been done/what’s
underway on biodiversity. Spreadsheet from Food Task Force that put together a similar
collecting going on through EOS that’s going on with food. Left in some of those projects that
might be related to campus biodiversity
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Purpose of biodiversity inventory
o Build a comprehensive inventory at UNH to inform decision making
Goals
o Collect/catalog data to create a shared inventory
o Update key data on regular basis, data based on framework developed by Tom
Lee and Steve Eisenhaure
Who is this for?
o Many uses and audiences potentially for this have been discussed.
o Campus planning/facilities to help inform decision making
o Faculty/instructors to help aid/enhance teaching and develop research
o Students to help with research projects
o Also added external media/higher ed institutions to create compelling stories
about UNH sustainability leadership and provide a model for other campuses
Ecosystem Task Force, Meeting Minutes, 4/17/14
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Timeline
o Spring ’14: gathering data and securing funding for a research intern
o NSF grant via Mike P.
o Summer ’14: data collection and presenting to EcoTF
o Fall: reviewing document
Resources needed
o Intern stipend
o Faculty buyout?
Discussion:
o Mike: enlightening last meeting, approached this as a research data gathering but
realized that it’s also a management tool. El did a wonderful job gathering all of
that information from the meeting. Timeline looks to be on course
o Steve: a lot of overlap between what’s proposed and what I’m starting to do
already with tracking lands
Steve: Geodatabase
o Use data is called a CRA form: course, research and activity
o Everyone that uses UNH lands that are users of 10 or more are supposed to fill
out this form, or for research installations. Have to indicated on a map what
they’re doing with a description of the project
 Take that in and save it. Some of that information was used in the grid
layout. College Woods assessment was an amped up version of what I
already do.
 Many people don’t take the time to register their uses
o Can analyze CRA information using block-type analysis
 Tom B: didn’t know such a thing existed, have given information to
COLSA annually but never a form to use
 Seems people find the form redundant and don’t want to fill it out for
every property they use
o Will be a map with the grid we’re used to seeing for every campus properties,
people will indicate on the form what blocks they use. Can then enter that into
geo-database to know what blocks are being used for what purpose
o Mendum’s property:
 Geo-database allows for cataloging of each item as a shape
 Can eventually be made available on the map online so people can use
that information if they wanted to
 Will include this year, each property is on a 10-year management plan
update basis. This year is Mendum’s and Squam
 Wetlands and wildlife that are classified “of concern” by NH fish
and game. Have to check areas at certain times to check for
different species.
o Each property has a grid of permanent plots, every 2.5 acres
 Around that mark, measure all the trees using certain # of steps
 Also capture low vegetation as well
 Some properties have taken soil samples and cataloged that information
as well.
 Plot example: 507
 24 individual vegetation
 At center plot, take a regeneration plot to be able to measure in 10 years
what’s doing on
Ecosystem Task Force, Meeting Minutes, 4/17/14
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How do you take that data and say something about the health or functionality of
the system of the parcel?
 Have a software program that will read the spreadsheets and give a
density estimate of the trees, and give an estimate of saplings/seedlings
per acre
 Also include invasives etc. over time measure dead trees that are in the
plot
Sampling on a decade basis seems like a long time.
 Ten years in a forest is not that much.
 This is used for researchers and timber harvest, this can inform timber
operations plans.
 On decade intervals researchers can start to make assumptions of what’s
going on
 Usually more like 20 years
Parcels on/near campus, include college woods? How close to core of campus
does this take place?
 This year doing West Foss, East Foss and complete all lots right around
campus
2016 will be the re-measure. McDonald lot was the first to be done so will be
able to go back in ’16 to see what’s been happening
In terms of other types of data, that would potentially be coming in from other
classes/researchers, is that going to the same place?
 Direction of information I, Steve, generate is mostly collections for the
researchers. They take it and do what they’re going to do with it.
 Mark Ducey uses a lot of this stuff for research.
 What about the forms?
 Forms are kept and starting to enter those into a similar database,
separate set of data.
By analogy we did a GHG inventory, to know where emissions come from so we
can set targets against that. If we were to say our goal is to model ecosystem
management as a university, can we take the lands data’s collected on and make
claims on how well or how poorly we’re managing them?
 Depends on what scale you measure biodiversity at
 Can we be a model institution for managing ecosystem health? What
we’re trying to do. This data’s analogous to the GHG inventory so we
can say we know we are managing these areas
 Steve: one of my goals is to make sure the properties are healthy.
Different ways to define that. Can leave it a lone, or manipulated in some
ways to get results that we think are healthy
 Some areas are healthier because we have a wider range of age
 Some would argue our human interaction there is making it
unhealthy.
 Constantly manipulating the Hort. Farm. That indicator is
probably pretty high
 Comes back to what you’re using as the deciding factor of
what’s healthy, what are the indicators.
o What this group is supposed to decide
 Mike: can do carbon storage, tree samples and species, huge amount of
data
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Might take a different tack, 500 years ago was probably closer to the biodiversity
it should have been. Whatever metrics we agree upon and seeing how a synthesis
of this data moves us on this path. There will be certain systems we won’t do
much with and it’s more manicured but for one of the farms. Kingman, most of it
is managed so you’ll never have what was 7 centuries ago, but we could start to
look at what might be achievable.
 College Woods could be the Holy Grail that we want an old growth
forest and in the next 4 centuries that’s what we’re moving towards.
o Start with 4/5 levels that we start with in different areas.
o Process for coming up with targets and inventories, are we using carbon storage?
Put the suite of things together based on best practices/collective knowledge
 Be careful of using single indicators like carbon storage, then you just
plant something that grows fast.
 In terms of disturbance, the whole planet
El: came across a guide done for the UK. Thought it was a really useful guide, gives the
rational for a guide. Can forward out with the notes
o In terms of establishing the rational and what this can do, I think this provides a
good starting place for us.
o Some topics
 Drivers for Action
 Benefiting from Biodiversity
 Healthy Living
o Is general but gives a pretty good outline
o Tom K: in a way we establish some rhythm to determine what the status is of
campus and ecosystems
o Doug: do they describe what their indicators are?
 No
Steve: mentioned wildlife species of concern. For me that’s similar, I don’t have
instruction for the other unique things on the properties but it’s something similar I would
follow. Wetlands are places of higher diversity and we want to protect water quality also.
Supposed to go out to Mendum’s and Squam this spring to inspect vegetation.
o Type of thing you could use as baseline objectives for the property. Protect the
things that are special that are here. Have to ID those to be able to protect them
o Outside of that, protect characteristics of the surrounding property that may not
be special in terms of biodiversity but complement the site.
What could we do with what’s being collected to move to some sort of a goal
o Is this the type of data we need to do that
o Not laid out in the first draft outline
Relationship to Nitrogen Inventory
PhD student wills tart this summer from VA. Part of what she’ll do is nitrogen footprint project
we discussed. WE still haven’t heard back form EPA but as far a we know we’re the only
proposal. Will front funding to help the PhD student. John Aber is going to join this group, and
that student can help do some of what we start to ID to help get us to this plan. We’ll have
someone we can turn to with good skills and knowledge to plug into the timeline
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What will the student be doing this summer?
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Not defined yet. Most of funding not for student labor but for a team to travel to
UVA to participate in a workshop a few times. This is a practical way to have
someone doing something, John will oversee her as part of the PhD.
Does that mean we don’t need an undergrad student?
o Not sure, hoping in light of this conversation go back to the timeline and what
needs to be done and think through that
If data was collected how would we get data into Steve’s database or would we start our
own and try to then glean data available from Steve’s that he’d be willing to include in
that? Some of the plots would be interesting to develop the biodiversity data collection
plan
o Steve: here for people to use it, the only thing but design is probably a bit clunky
for what the group wants to do. Sam in facilities helped develop this but he could
probably make an improved system
o Doug: someone has to define the structure and definitions for things.
o Steve: the question is what type of detail do we want
Is all of the data Steve’s gathered in Doug’s database?
o At this point no, it’s possible but we’re just starting to figure that out
Is there a sharing of this on ARC GIS?
o Doug: that’s the platform for it all but they’re not necessarily sharing the
information
o Steve just started this year with CRA grid mechanism, been working with Sam
on boundaries and would share that
If you’re measuring in 2016, what was done in 2006
o That’s the information where you pick a shape and describe it. If we wanted to
increase info on plants in wetlands. Each species of plant found gets a new
record, where/what it is/when collected. That would be in that format to be
clicked on and see what species are in that area
o Steve: interesting that Tom B. mentioned the thought of what would grow if left
alone
We would establish for the wood lot that this is a reasonable target for what we want to
be doing?
o Flora is one thing, fauna could be another end game. Looking at other metrics we
want to focus on isn’t bad, if Fish & Game has a species list that could be one
Synthesizing the data
o Overwhelming task to do
Steve: did a biodiversity assessment of the block format. Could make a rubric that was
ecosystem health related. Would be broad, presence/absence of invasive plants, unique
wildlife/plant species score etc.
Tom: what indicators would you, John, think of?
o Organic matter and soil ecosystem health and diversity, trying to patch some of
the isolated units that have been sliced/diced over time, pulling those back
together would be good.
If you have a good map of forest could do fragmentation indexes and finding out what’s
more isolated. Could look at connectivity and find what pathways are critical pinch points
that might require more monitoring/protection. Could be done easily if data is a vector or
rsa file.
One management goal would be to reduce fragmentation and enhance connectivity
o Would have a list of these kinds of management principles that guide the overall
plan.
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Steve: there are situations where we’ve disrupted continuous forest on purpose
Fragmentation isn’t necessarily forest, could be of bunny habitat for example
In a practical sense would want to find the zones of campus, define how they’re
characterized: wooded, streams, agriculture, lawn.
 A lot of this is in the landscape master plan, can go back and itemize
these things
Fragmentation/connectivity is large landscape management plans. What Steve’s doing is
species/monitoring in parcels within an smaller area. If we develop a monitoring plan
could have
o look at large scale processes on landscape
o looking at goals for land, managing forest, logging practices etc.
o specific indicator species collected across the area
o will have to recognize that there are scale dependent metrics
o large scale would be a bird’s eye view of whether the whole is greater than the
sum of the parts and then there would be site specific management like Steve’s
doing
Sounds like we’re saying a few things
o Targets of what’s being tracked
o How does that effect decision making and how that information translates
o Research and education which seems like another entity even though it’s related
but how it’s translated/communicated seems to be potentially different across
these issues
o Envisioning as a simplistic thing, if I were trying to make a land decision, want
some basic information about that land to start with i.e. and overarching
recommendation and that would be more interesting to a general audience as well
o Steve: will be what the objective for the property?
 Doug: goes back to the targets: what’s the target that makes it
healthy/unhealthy
 Steve: something might have a huge research purpose that may squash
out the other things we’re considering for that property. I.e. keeping it
pristine/untouched interferes with timber management research.
o Will still be things that have to be decided despite factors. Doesn’t make sense to
build in Kingman farm just because something meets all the parameters.
 part of what we’re trying to do is determine growth boundaries for
campus, started out with concern for college woods
 we don’t own the area around college woods
o growth scenarios are in specific program, overall enrollments not anticipated to
go up
 A shift in student enrollments
Next Steps
o Metrics that would indicate healthy systems we’re shooting for
 Would be good to use the ones we already have rather than invent new
ones
 First ID decision scale/value for forest, stream, lawns, developed areas
and within those the metrics we’re looking for
 Basically need to zone our land.
o How many landscape types do we want to have?
 Forest
 Natural vs. Managed
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 Technically all areas are managed
Agriculture
 Orchard/row crops/dairy
 Agriculture fields
 Pasture
 Streams/running water
 Ponds and wetlands
 Infrastructure/intensively managed landscape/manicured landscape
 Hardscape
 Parking lots/buildings etc.
 Margins
 Each will have their own margin, if you ended the stream at the
edge of the water and then had pavement will have bad readings,
everything will have a buffer/margin with it.
 Steve: thinking more about an intersection where trees are
growing, what are they? Likely very unique for that area
o Would throw that into hardscape?
 Buffers/transition/hinges
 What about areas that fall under multiple/none? I.e. areas around ravine
that have trees, stream? Forest?
Should we collect the data/research that’s being done
o Collect what’s being done here
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Updates From Group
Summit/Student updates
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Summit went very well, several speakers including Tom, some students, one faculty
member. Very engaging with over 60 people
Great student projects presented, Whiz Kids,
Kaity Thompson spoke on Tar Sands pipeline proposed through NH, from Portland to
Montreal. Hiked a part of it during the winter,
Katey from Slow Food discussed slow fish program that’s starting, Dining also came to
present about local food initiatives
Tom: what I hadn’t fully appreciated was that between Spencer Montgomery and Dining,
UNH wrote the slow fish principles based on the Slow Food principles.
o Worked with Dining, Coop Ext. Spencer Montgomery, and others to work on a
pilot to integrate more local seafood in dining. 6-week pilot for local seafood into
the dining halls.
o Spencer and dining and group have been working on Slow Fish principles with
Slow Food International as part of their Slow Fish initiative. UNH was first in
country to sign on to Slow Food principles, Spencer drafted Slow Fish principles
and we’re again the first campus in the country
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