On this page:
Background
Study Area
Objectives

BACKGROUND

Figure 1. Location of the Adirondack State Park in New York State.

The Adirondack Ecological Zone, corresponding to the legislatively defined New York State Adirondack Park, comprises a 6 million-acre (2.4 million-ha), predominately forested region of northern New York (Figure 1). Nearly 340,000 wetland hectares, including deepwater marshes, rich fens, kettlehole bogs and over 3,000 associated lakes and ponds are situated in the region. Approximately 43% (2.5 million acres, 1 million ha) of the Park is owned by the State of New York and is constitutionally protected as "forever-wild" Forest Preserve. Private lands devoted principally to forestry, agriculture, and open-space recreation account for 57% of the Park (3.5 million acres, 1.4 million ha). The Park contains the largest wilderness acreage east of the Mississippi River as well as numerous settlement areas with attendant use conflicts. Because of the biological diversity in wetlands and the range of land uses, the Park is an ideal area in which to undertake a project seeking to characterize the wetland resource on a detailed watershed basis.

Figure 2. Major watersheds in Adirondack Park. Currently, through EPA-funded State Watershed Protection Program grants, two of the major watersheds, the Oswegatchie/Black and Upper Hudson, have been completely mapped for sub-watersheds and wetlands at a scale of 1:24,000. The project discussed in this report, Part One of the St. Lawrence River Watershed project, focused on the sub-watersheds and wetlands of the St. Regis river basin, a portion of the St. Lawrence. Other watersheds within the St. Lawrence drainage basin are the Grass River watershed, the Raquette River watershed, and the Salmon/Trout watershed.

The St. Lawrence River watershed is located in the northwestern Adirondack Park and is comprised of the Grass, Raquette, Salmon, and St. Regis rivers that ultimately drain northwest into the St. Lawrence River (Figure 2). The St. Lawrence Watershed spans approximately 50 7.5-minute quadrangle sheets. It contains the Park's largest natural wetland complexes, including Massawepie Mire (5000 acres, 2,023 ha), Madawaska Wetland (3000 acres, 1,214 ha) and others (Table 1); it contains almost all of the Park's low elevation boreal biome; and it is largely privately owned by relatively few large landowners. Because of its hydrologic, ecological and ownership characteristics, this watershed offers a unique opportunity to gather spatial data on sub-watersheds and wetlands. The data created for this project have been used to:

• arm land managers in the watershed with natural resource information about their properties.
• establish a baseline of wetlands information that allows for future trends analyses.
• explore ways in which spatial data can be shared with Park residents and visitors via the Internet.

This report, Part One (of Two) of the St. Lawrence River Watershed Project, focuses on the wetland resources of the St. Regis River Basin, a sub-watershed of the St. Lawrence River watershed. Part Two will report on the remaining portions of the St. Lawrence River watershed in which some of the largest wetland complexes are found.

STUDY AREA: St. Regis River Basin

The St. Regis River Basin falls between 44.3°N and 44.7°N latitude and 74.8°W and 74.2°W longitude and measures 342,000 acres (138,400 ha) (Figure 2). It spans 19 7.5-minute quadrangles (Appendix 1). 53.5% of the St. Regis Watershed is categorized under the Adirondack Park Land Use and Development Plan land classification system as Resource Management, which includes forest management and agricultural uses (State of New York 1998). Elevation in the watershed ranges from 679 ft. to 3,310 ft. (207 m - 1009 m). Higher elevations occur in the west and south causing the basin to drain northeast into the St. Lawrence River.

Long cold winters and short cool summers characterize the climate of the St. Regis River Basin. Average temperature, rainfall and snowfall vary locally within the watershed and are affected by differences in elevation and location relative to mountain ranges, prevailing wind and local bodies of water. Average precipitation reported at the Lawrenceville, St. Lawrence County weather station, which is just outside the Park but within the St. Regis River Basin (44°43'N, 74°45'W, 499.9 ft. (152.4 m) elev.) is 37.5 in. (952.3 mm) per year (NOAA 1992). Mean annual temperature at this station is 43.8°F (6.6°C), and has historically ranged from 15.8°F (-9.0°C) in January to 72.3°F (22.4°C) in July (NOAA 1999)

OBJECTIVES

Based on the successes of the Oswegatchie-Black River Watershed and Upper Hudson Watershed mapping projects conducted by the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) in partnership with the State University of New York at Plattsburgh and the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation (Roy et al. 1996, Roy et al. 1997, Primack et al., 2000), the objectives of this project were to (APA 1996):

1. create a detailed sub-watershed flow network for a major drainage basin of the St. Lawrence River watershed, specifically, the St. Regis River Basin.
2. label sub-watersheds of lakes and large wetland complexes in the St. Regis Watershed according to the hierarchical drainage flow model developed for the Oswegatchie-Black project.
3. produce accurate, digital wetlands maps of the St. Regis Watershed for use in a spatial database at a scale of 1:24000 using 1:40000 1994-97 U.S. Geological Survey National Aerial Photography Program (NAPP) color infrared aerial photography. Combining the wetlands maps with the sub-watershed maps helps to determine whether large wetland complexes within the St. Regis Watershed are hydrologically related to each other and/or to the lakes and rivers that flow through them.
4. conduct a literature search of large wetland complexes in the St. Regis Watershed (Table 1) and georeference these data within the spatial database.
5. share the results of the wetland and watershed mapping with large landowners within the St. Regis River Basin, in partnership with the Adirondack Nature Conservancy and Land Trust (ANCLT).

The final objective, that of landowner outreach, was highly important to this project in that it allowed for interchange between the public and private sectors. At the same time as the landowner participants were learning what the APA could provide them, such as natural resource maps, the APA gained insight into the specific issues important to land managers. The meetings with the landowners were successful in building ties between a State agency and the citizens it serves.

Table 1. Large wetland complexes of the St. Lawrence watershed.

Continue to next section of St. Regis Report: Literature Survey
Return to table of contents
References Cited