The Ashley Creek and Adley Creek Inventory Project will involve desk top analysis and a field scale inventory of riparian areas to determine priority areas to install erosion control Best Management Practices and vegetative buffers for nutrient reduction. Assessments will also be made for potential E.coli bacteria sources. Inventory data will be shared with local partners to further develop an implementation plan to address nutrient loading and the listed impairments on each creek.
There is a critical need to understand how our natural resources are already responding to climate change in order to develop tools for projecting natural resource responses into the future and to devise plans for actions that can be taken in reaction to observed and predicted changes. Phenology – the timing of seasonal biological events such as budburst, flowering, bird migration, and leaf coloring – provides a tested indicator of climate change response by plants and animals.
Over a three-month period in 2010, approximately five million barrels of oil was spilled into the Gulf of Mexico causing extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats and resulting in significant losses in fish and wildlife populations. A number of Minnesota's migratory bird species spend parts of their lives in the areas impacted by the spill and impacts on their populations in the state could become evident over time.
