Feds seek input to update National Wetland Plant List – input by Jan 31, 2015

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is leading a nationwide effort to update the National Wetland Plant List (NWPL) and seeks input on revisions, additions, and deletions to the plant list. 

The NWPL covers all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territorial Caribbean and Pacific islands. The list’s wetland plant species status ratings are used extensively in wetland delineation, wetland restoration and research, and the development of compensatory mitigation goals, as well as in providing general botanical information about wetland plants. 

The NWPL website provides access to wetland plant species by State (including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, but not Guam) and by Region (encompassing the total geographic range for each taxon throughout North America north of Mexico). 

In an effort to continuously improve the NPWL, the NWPL panel has released an online questionnaire designed to identify those plant species for which wetland ratings may need revision, as well as species that should be considered for addition to and/or deletion from the list. 
 
The questionnaire requires the respondent to identify the species in question, the wetland region(s) and/or sub-region(s) in which its wetland rating needs to be reviewed, the current wetland rating, and the proposed wetland rating change. 
 
The questionnaire is open to any agency, institution, or individual who cares to submit information on one or more plant species with wetland ratings that may need further review. 
 
Questionnaires will be accepted November 10, 2014 through January 31, 2015. 

Read the announcement and find the link to the questionnaire at: http://rsgisias.crrel.usace.army.mil/nwpl_static/html/help/NWPL_anno_14.html

This information courtesy of:
Patricia S. De Angelis, Ph.D.
Botanist, US Fish & Wildlife Service-Division of Scientific Authority
Chair, Plant Conservation Alliance-Medicinal Plant Working Group