Albuquerque Overbank Project (AOP)

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The Albuquerque Overbank Project (AOP) is a pilot project begun in 1998 to test and evaluate the river riparian restoration practice of modifying terraces and bars to enhance hydrological connectivity and encourage overbank flooding to spur natural regeneration of native trees species and associated plant communities. As part of the project, an extensive monitoring program was installed to measure tree establishment and growth plus native versus exotic plant species abundance. The monitoring data documented favorable outcomes of 2,040 Rio Grande cottonwoods per hectare occupying the site as of 2007 and native herbaceous species holding their own against exotic species (Muldavin et al. 2011). Initially, monitoring was conducted yearly, but beginning 2002, a monitoring interval of approximately five years was proposed as the optimal to evaluate long-term trends on the site. Monitoring last took place in 2007, and the proposal here is to conduct monitoring in 2013, the project’s 15th year. The monitoring of AOP has two components: 1) data collection and the maintenance of a long-term database, and 2) analysis, presentation and publication of trends results and other public outreach activities. The data collection component would follow the previously established protocols and would include any remedial actions needed to maintain the integrity of the sampling sites and the project area. The data would be entered into the on-going AOP database and a data report provided on the details of the sampling and the database. The second component entails a full analysis of the data over the entire project period with publication of results both in a restoration journal and on the web to provide information to a wide audience.

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