A NATURAL RESOURCE ASSESSMENT
FOR
NEW RIVER GORGE NATIONAL RIVER

Technical Report NPS/NER/NRTR--2004/002

 

Carolyn G. Mahan

Penn State Altoona
114 Eiche Library
The Pennsylvania State University
Altoona, PA 16601

December 2004

 

U.S. Department of the Interior
National Park Service
Northeast Region
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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Executive Summary

New River Gorge National River (NERI) began its General Management Plan (GMP) planning process in 2004 to ensure that the park has a clearly defined direction for resource conservation and visitor use. The NERI GMP should be based on current scientific and scholarly understanding of park natural (and cultural) resources and make certain that planning decisions are consistent with park purposes. Toward that goal, this report seeks to provide an assessment of the currently available natural resource knowledge relating to NERI. This report provides usable, understandable, and transferable information about the current status and significance of, threats to, and gaps in knowledge about, the natural resources at NERI.

In addition, this report provides suggested management recommendations to help ensure the proper stewardship of the natural resources at NERI. In order to conduct this assessment of natural resources at NERI, all relevant reports, publications, and data files pertinent to natural resources in the park were synthesized and summarized. In addition, three workshops related to specific natural resources (hydrogeology/geology, forest resources, and biotic resources) were conducted and attended by resource managers, academic and governmental researchers, research technicians, and park staff. Attendees helped summarize past and ongoing natural resource studies, identified gaps in knowledge about the resources, and suggested desired future conditions and management prescriptions for natural resources at NERI. In addition, the participants provided their collective opinions regarding the significance of these natural resources.

A distinctive combination of moist climate, steep topography, hard quartz sandstone geology, ancient river system, and history of resource extraction, use, and alteration (e.g., mining, logging, and flood control) shape the landscape and resources found in NERI today. Within the large matrix of continuous forest found at NERI, a wide variety of habitat elements, both natural and cultural, support significant assemblages of plants and animals. For example, abandoned mine portals, a cultural landscape element, provide habitat for rare species of bats, Allegheny woodrats, and cave salamanders. Sheer cliff faces support sensitive plant species, rare green salamanders, and, perhaps, significant invertebrate assemblages. Forest seeps and the Kates Branch Wetland contain populations of wetland birds, provide breeding ground for amphibians, supply habitat for invertebrate assemblages, and provide vegetation diversity in the landscape.

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This report contains two Synthesis CDs. The NERI Synthesis Information Management System database contains 81 full-text searchable documents cited in this natural resource assessment. Due to time constraints, not all documents cited in this assessment report are contained in the NERI Synthesis database but Synthesis can be updated continually. The first CD contains the executable files to run Synthesis and the second contains NERI-specific data files. Additional copies of these CDs are available from the Synthesis Regional Support Center (synthesis@jmu.edu). Instructions for installing Synthesis are available in Appendix F. These CDs can be continually updated so that an electronic version of all significant natural resource documents is available for the park.

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Tables of Content
Executive Summary
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Study Area
Methods
Historic Land Use and its Potential Effects on Natural Resources