Linking the Forest to the Bay

Tampa Bay’s forests are crucial to maintaining the water quality of the bay and its tributaries, mitigating flooding and maintaining a diversity of natural plant and animal communities. At the same time these forest lands promote the physical health and quality of life of watershed residents. Despite these multiple benefits, forests in the Tampa Bay watershed continue to be at risk.

The program will provide a science-based introduction to the role of Tampa Bay’s watershed forest in promoting water quality and moderating peak stormwater flows. Participants will engage in facilitated discussion to identify opportunities for enhancing forest protection during land use change and management that supports regional sustainability.

September 25, 2008

8:15 Welcome
Michael G. Andreu, Ph.D. – University of Florida
http://training.ifas.ufl.edu/TampaBayForest_Andreu_Welcome/index.html

8:30 Status of Tampa Bay
Holly Greening, Executive Director - Tampa Bay Estuary Program

Coastal waters have been significantly influenced by increased inputs of nutrients that have accompanied population growth and land use changes in adjacent drainage basins. In Tampa Bay, the population has quadrupled since 1950. By the late 1970s, eutrophic conditions including phytoplankton and macroalgal blooms and seagrass losses were evident. The focus of improving Tampa Bay is centered on obtaining sufficient water quality necessary for restoring seagrass habitat, estimated to have been 16,400 ha in 1950 but reduced to 8,800 ha by 1982. To address these problems, targets for nutrient load reductions along with seagrass restoration goals were developed and actions implemented to reach adopted targets. Data show that when nitrogen load reduction and chlorophyll a targets are met seagrass cover increases. Following nitrogen load reductions and maintenance of chlorophyll a at target levels, seagrass acreage has increased ~30% since 1982, although more than 5,000 ha of seagrass still require recovery. The cooperation of scientists, managers and decision makers participating in the Tampa Bay Estuary Program’s Nitrogen Management Strategy allows the Tampa Bay estuary to continue to show progress towards reversing many of the problems that once plagued its waters. These results also highlight the importance of a multi-entity watershed management process in maintaining progress towards science-based natural resource goals.
http://training.ifas.ufl.edu/TampaBayForest_Greening_Status/index.html

9:00 The Role of Forests in Protecting Water Quality and Quantity
Matt Cohen, Ph.D. - University of Florida

The role of forests in protecting watershed functions takes multiple forms, and their additive value is difficult to overstate. First, forests mediate the relationship between rainfall and streamflow. Rain is captured, stored, transpired and slowly released in a manner that reduces flooding frequency and magnitude, and maintains critical base-flow conditions. Second, forests situated between streams and sources of contaminants – riparian forests in particular – support physical and biological processes that remove those contaminants. This is particularly true for nitrogen (N) pollution, the overloading of which has important implications for estuarine and near-shore marine habitats. Finally, all forest types, including plantations, reduce the source loading of many contaminants. As such, forest cover within a watershed represents an “opportunity benefit”, the loss of which results in costs to people and the environment. This talk synthesizes these three main areas of environmental services, and makes the case for aggressive policy to retain and enhance forest cover as a watershed management and restoration tool.
http://training.ifas.ufl.edu/TampaBayForest_Cohen_ForestRole/index.html

9:30 Exploring the Links Between Soils and Water Quality
Gurpal Toor, Ph.D. - University of Florida

A variety of water quality problems, such as eutrophication, hypoxia, microbial and organic toxics contamination due to pollutants (nutrients, metals, pesticides, pathogens, sediment) plague water bodies in Florida and US. Pollutant sources in the environment include both point (wastewater discharges, industrial effluents) and non-point (runoff and leaching from urban, agriculture, open land). Improvements in the wastewater treatment plants and increased regulation on industrial effluent discharges, after passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, have resulted in reducing contribution of point sources to pollutant loads. On the contrary, non-point source pollution remains the leading cause of water quality impairment in the US. For example, the modeling estimates by Tampa Bay Estuary Program indicate that non-point sources are the greatest contributor of total nitrogen (78%), total phosphorus (67%), and total suspended solids (95%) to the Tampa Bay. Developing solutions to control pollutant loads from non-point sources is difficult because of the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of pollutants and complex transport pathways in the landscape, which is further confounded by urbanization.
http://training.ifas.ufl.edu/TampaBayForest_Toor_QualitySoils/index.html

10:00 Riparian Forest Function
Rob Northrop, Extension Forester

University of Florida, Hillsborough County Extension
Recent efforts to address the detrimental effects non-point source pollution on water quality, using a watershed management approach, have focused on the restoration and conservation of riparian forest ecosystems as sinks and transformers of a variety of pollutants transported in shallow ground water flows and surface flows adjacent to receiving water bodies. In addition, tree material in the form of leaf litter, fruit and large wood from the riparian forest canopy provides the foundation of the freshwater aquatic food web, while supporting the core habitat of a broad range of terrestrial plants and animals.
http://training.ifas.ufl.edu/TampaBayForest_Northrop_RiparianForest/index.html

10:45 The Urbanizing Face of the Forest
Michael Andreu, Ph.D. - University of Florida

The forests of Florida are rapidly changing in part due to an increase in population and expansion of urban areas into rural forests and farmland. While this trend is not new in Florida the rate of expansion has increased and some argue we are approaching an ecological “tipping point” from which these forests will no longer provide the ecosystem services society desires. Therefore, it is necessary to quantify the forest composition, structure and function across the landscape along the urban to rural continuum.

To address the effect of urbanization on forest composition and function we utilized the UFORE methodology and established over 500 permanent plots in a systematic random sample. Two hundred of the plots were located within the city of Tampa and the remaining three hundred were located in the surrounding urbanizing watershed. These plots establish both a baseline for a long-term study and allow comparison of changes in forest structure and function along the continuum of development.
http://training.ifas.ufl.edu/TampaBayForest_Andreu_UrbanForest/index.html

11:15 Public Land Management
Cyndi Gates, Land Management Specialist
Southwest Florida Water Management District

One of the most important ways in which public land managing agencies protect the integrity of Tampa Bay is through our aggressive acquisition and management programs. Land acquisition by public conservation agencies is a critical component in precluding large-scale development that would further burden our natural systems. Proper management through prescribed burning, exotic plant and animal control, restoration, and best management practices implementation is another critical layer in protecting our natural systems and helping maintain water quality and quantity.
http://training.ifas.ufl.edu/TampaBayForest_Gates_Lands/index.html

11:45 Challenges Facing the Private Landowner
Eric Hoyer, Senior Forester - Natural Resource Planning Services, Inc.

Florida’s non-industrial private forest landowners (NIPF) face increasing challenges in light of today’s rapidly changing forestry environment. Consolidation within the forest industry, the conversion of many traditional timber companies to TIMO’s and REIT’s, parcelization, increasing land values and real estate taxes, regulations, urbanization and local Property Appraisers present many hurdles to effective and profitable land management. Although today’s environment is difficult, small landowners can still manage their forests for forest products and other benefits to themselves and the community. Taking advantage of alternative forest products such as cabbage palms or pine straw, enrolling in cost-share programs, seeking professional advice and qualifying for Agricultural Classification are some of the ways landowners can help themselves.
http://training.ifas.ufl.edu/TampaBayForest_Hoyer_Landowner/index.html

12:15 New Technology for Conservation
Amr Abd-Elrahman, Ph.D. - University of Florida

Technology has historically been a major contributor to water, soil, and natural resources conservation efforts. Recent developments in sensing, communications and computer analysis technologies are creating a wealth of data and analysis tools that significantly support decision makers and advise best management practices in the Tampa Bay Area. New development in remote sensing technology is introducing improved sensors capable of capturing higher spectral and spatial details. The more advanced full waveform LiDAR technology, which provides a dense sampling of reflected laser signal and Hyperspectral remote sensing imagery, which provides hundreds of remote sensing bands are two examples of such development. This flood of data is accompanied by rapid improvement in computer and communication technologies in addition to software analysis tools. Communication technology is also setting the pace for a new evolution in community participation in the conservation efforts and introduces the term ‘Humans as sensors” as a new term in the spatial data collection literature.
http://training.ifas.ufl.edu/TampaBayForest_Amr_Technology/index.html

1:30 Breakout Session – Terry Johnson,
Setting An Agenda for Action - Participants identify opportunities and barriers to to the conservation and protection of the Tampa Bay watershed’s forest.

Outcomes from Group Discussions - printer friendly