One of the objectives of this project was to integrate the digital wetlands covertype data produced in Phase I of the Oswegatchie/Black River Watershed Project into this catalog of coverages. The final report of the Phase I project details the methods and provides references and metadata for this coverage. The report is entitled Watershed Protection for Adirondack Wetlands: A Demonstration-Level GIS Characterization of Subcatchments of the Oswegatchie/Black River Watershed EPA Grant No. X-002777-01 Final Report by K.M.Roy, R.P.Curran, J.W.Barge, D.M.Spada, D.J.Bogucki, E.B.Allen, and W.A.Kretser 1996.

Another objective of this project was to continue the discussion of potential threats to wetlands, particularly peatlands, in the Adirondacks. This discussion is provided in Section IV of this report.

One of the objectives of this study was to examine the question of potential wetland sensitivity to additions of nutrients and acidification. One aspect was to investigate the availability of digital atmospheric deposition data for the study area that was temporally compatible with the other data coverages. A further discussion of this objective can be found in Section III of this report.

Description of existing data

The work of Ollinger et al. (1993) was available. It provides digital spatial coverages of recent precipitation and total deposition of nitrogen and sulfur for the Northeast region in GIS.

Available were:

ELEVATION. A digital elevation model (DEM) from U.S. Geological Survey (1987) covering eastern New York with a geographic resolution of 30 arc-seconds.

PRECIPITATION. Developed from long-term (30 yr) mean annual precipitation from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (1951-1980).

TOTAL NITROGEN AND TOTAL SULFUR. Deposition from the 1991 National Atmospheric Deposition Program/ National Trends Network from 26 precipitation chemistry and 13 air concentration monitoring stations across the Northeast region that had 3-11 years of data.

Provided with this report are precipitation, total nitrogen and total sulfur as raw data covering the Oswegatchie/Black study area. Refer to Ollinger et al. (1993) for detailed methods.

Discussion

We used these data to display patterns and ranges across the Oswegatchie/Black River study area. The following ranges are reported:

Mean Annual Precipitation (1951-1980): from 83 cm to greater than 148 cm.

Total Nitrogen, Annual (1991): from less than or equal to 6.66 to greater than 10.75 kg/ha.

Total Sulfur, Annual (1991): from 10.87 to 16.37 kg/ha.

At least one researcher has used these deposition data in combination with the wetlands coverage to look at possible study sites for a peatlands nitrogen study (A. Aldous, personal communication).

References

• Aldous, A. personal communication 1997, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
• Ollinger, S.V., Aber, J.D., Lovett, G.M., Milham, S.E., Lathrop, R.G., and Ellis, J.M. 1993. A spatial model of atmospheric deposition for the northeastern U.S. Ecol. Applications 3(3):459-472.

Digital coverages for lake watershed boundaries were incorporated from the Oswegatchie/Black Phase I project. These were used to link files with the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation data and the Adirondack Long-Term Monitoring waters located in the study area.

Description of Existing Data

The lake watershed boundaries digital data contained a total of 1223 ponded waters labelled with NYS Department of Environmental Conservation pond identification numbers (Roy et al. 1996).

Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation (ALSC)

The Adirondack Lake Survey Corporation was initiated in 1983 by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Empire State Electric Energy Research Corporation (ESEERCO) to quantify the chemistry and fisheries status of Adirondack waters. This one-season summer sampling survey provided data for over 1469 lakes in the Adirondacks between 1984-87. This effort resulted in the acquisition of extensive physical, chemical and biological data. A statistical summary (Kretser et al. 1989) and an interpretive report (Baker et al. 1990) were produced.

The Adirondack Long-Term Monitoring waters (ALTM)

The Adirondack Long-Term Monitoring (ALTM) program was started in 1982 on 17 lakes to evaluate water chemistry changes during the year with the collection of monthly samples. The ALTM program was expanded to be more representative of all categories of Adirondack waters by the addition of 35 waters in 1992. This ongoing program is conducted by the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation in cooperation with Syracuse University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering with support from the USEPA (Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation and Syracuse University 1997).

The Oswegatchie/Black study area contains 545 ALSC waters and 23 ALTM waters. The ALTM waters are listed and their watershed characteristics described further in Section IV of this report (Table IV A.4).

References

• Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation and Syracuse University Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering. 1997. Proposal for extension of: A long-term monitoring program for evaluating changes in water quality in selected Adirondack waters. Submitted to ESEERCO, NYSDEC and USEPA, Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation, Ray Brook, NY.
• Baker, J.P., Gherini, S.A., Christensen, S.W., Driscoll, C.T., Gallagher, J., Munson, R.K., Newton, R.M., Reckhow, K.H., and Schofield, C.L. 1990. Adirondack lakes survey: An interpretive analysis of fish communities and water chemistry, 1984-87. Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation, Ray Brook, NY.
• Kretser, W., Gallager, J., and Nicolette, J. 1989. Adirondack Lakes Survey, 1984-1987. An evaluation of fish communities and water chemistry. Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation, Ray Brook, NY.
• Roy, K.M., Curran, R.P., Barge, J.W., Spada, D.M., Bogucki, D.J., Allen, E.B, and Kretser, W.A. 1996. Watershed protection for Adirondack wetlands: A demonstration-level GIS characterization of subcatchments of the Oswegatchie/Black river watershed final report. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency State Wetlands Protection Program Grant No. X-002777-01.