RIPARIAN-WETLAND AIM

• Position: Riparian-Wetland AIM Crew Lead
• Employer: Colorado Natural Heritage Program
• Location: Salt Lake City, UT
• Dates: March 2022 – August 2022

Riparian-Wetland Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring (AIM) is a protocol used by the Bureau of Land Management to keep tabs on wetlands. Riparian-Wetland AIM is the newest addition to the AIM family–the other members are Terrestrial AIM (for uplands) and Lotic AIM (for rivers and streams). Wetlands are super important for nutrient cycling, habitat, and water attenuation so I was really excited to hear there’s now a monitoring program specifically for them. The Riparian-Wetland AIM protocol includes methods that assess hydrology, soils, plants, water quality, human & natural disturbances, wetland classification, woody structure, and hummocks.

BLM lands in Utah are mainly desert which might make you wonder why they had a Riparian-Wetland crew at all. Turns out there are wetlands in the desert! Many of the sites we visited were springs where groundwater discharge supports wetland plant communities. We also had some riparian sites along rivers and streams, including one beaver pond. Some of the sites we visited had future restoration projects planned which made them rather boring to visit (I didn’t sign up for terrestrial!) but were definitely important because the data would be used as a baseline to measure future habitat improvement against.

To me the coolest part of this job was getting to observe the impacts of land use such as cattle grazing and recreation on riparian and wetland areas. I also loved getting to learn more about soils since that was something I’d never had the chance to do in the field before.