The Upper Mississippi River Restoration (UMRR) Long Term Resource Monitoring (LTRM) element combines environmental monitoring, research, and modeling with data management and dissemination to provide important information to river managers.
The UMRR LTRM mission is to assess, and detect changes in, the fundamental health and resilience of the Upper Mississippi River ecosystem by continuing to monitor and evaluate its key ecological components of aquatic vegetation, bathymetry, fish, land use/ land cover, and water qualtiy. The LTRM element provides resource managers and decision makers with information necessary to maintain the UMRS as a sustainable multiple-use large river ecosystem. This work is accomplished through the following strategies:
Strategy 1: Evaluate the Upper Mississippi River’s ecological status and trends through comprehensive, integrated analyses of key ecological indicators using UMRR’s long term data.
Strategy 2: Conduct scientific analysis, research, and modeling using UMRR’s long term data, and any necessary supplemental data, to gain knowledge about the Upper Mississippi River ecosystem status and trends and process, function, structure, and composition.
Strategy 3: Continue to improve the effectiveness of long term data collection, analysis, storage, and dissemination to maintain the data’s integrity, long-term consistency, relevance, and usability.
Strategy 4: Evaluate additional ecological components as priorities and resources allow to gain an even broader understanding of the Upper Mississippi River ecosystem and expand possibilities for important scientific analyses.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is charged with overall program management responsibility and funding for the UMRR, including the LTRM element. The LTRM is implemented by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center in cooperation with the five UMRS states: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin.