Filtering by
- All Subjects: Desert conservation
- Creators: Fonseca, Julia
- Creators: Battelle Memorial Institute. Technology Partnership Practice
On March 2, 1999, the Board of Supervisors of Pima County, Arizona adopted the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. This Plan is the largest and most comprehensive regional multi-species conservation plan in the United States. These memorandums of understanding record the agreements made with cooperating agencies.
To facilitate discussion about which species might be considered for protection, a series of in-depth interviews were conducted with members of the local science community who have expertise in the areas of birds, fish, invertebrates, mammals, plants and plant communities, and reptiles and amphibians.
Compiles information on plants and animals that are already recognized by the federal government as imperiled species, species which have been extirpated, and a much larger number of species that are in decline either locally or nationally. Descriptions of status, location, distribution, and habitat needs are presented for each species proposed. The report also considers vegetative communities, their history of decline and modification, and recommends priorities for their protection.
Two studies that describe the progress of riparian mapping that is being developed as part of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.
If one species had to be chosen to preserve and restore, perhaps it should be cottonwood. Cottonwood-willow forests, where they exist and are healthy, indicated the presence of a viable riparian area, which is in turn the key to conserving great proportions of our native species. A reflection of the dire status of our riparian systems is that the Sonoran cottonwood-willow and Sonoran mesquite-cottonwood forests.
This document and the Geographic Information System file that is now a part of the County library of over 1000 coverages, gives the scientific community access to mapping that better differentiates perennial, ephemeral and intermittent watercourses, and provides more comprehensive coverage of shallow groundwater sources. This data is significant because riparian habitat is one of the most important and least protected of the habitat types in Pima County.
Chronicles how the intention to conserve a relic population of Gila topminnow under current resource conditions is generally insufficient. We have let the resource base degrade too far to expect project and site specific responses to stem losses, much less lead to recovery. The Gila topminnow was considered to be among the most common of fishes in the Santa Cruz River system in the early 1940s. Three decades later is was considered endangered; and in another three decades time, its recovery is not foreseeable, given the piecemeal approach to protection efforts.
The purpose of this project was to compile information on groundwater withdrawals and surface water diversions near perennial streams, intermittent streams, and shallow groundwater areas previously identified by PAG for the SDCP. The information could be used to prioritize future investigations of potential impacts of these withdrawals and diversions on riparian and aquatic habitats for the SDCP.
Concerns research into the origin of water sustaining the Bingham Cienega. For purposes of long term management, we need to understand what the source of water is for the various riparian areas.