Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program Long Term Resource Monitoring

Develop 5-year focused research plans

The current annual time frame for Additional Program Element projects will be replaced with 5-year focused research plans for the four priority research areas determined by the Partnership:

• Native mussels
• Aquatic vegetation
  
• Landscape patterns in the river corridor
• Connectivity of the river to its landscape.

A draft of the framework for native mussel research was completed in FY09 and is under review. That draft will be finalized in FY10.
In addition, we will develop draft research frameworks for aquatic vegetation, landscape patterns, and possibly connectivity of the river to its floodplain. For each area, we will assign a team leader to form a working group that will develop the draft research framework. The framework for native mussels will be used as a template for the format of the remaining frameworks. Each document will be reviewed, working through the Analysis Team representatives.