Evaluating recovery of riparian wetlands on the White Mountain Apache Reservation

This study examines conditions at nineteen low-gradient riparian wetlands on the White Mountain Apache Reservation as they recovered from disturbances and responded to restoration treatments from 1995 to 2001. In the 1990s, the White Mountain Apache Tribe initiated various efforts to restore its lands and waters, including the establishment of a Permanent Land Restoration Fund. Interviews with cultural advisors and restoration practitioners revealed how Tribal efforts to restore marshlands and wet meadows promote important cultural values and represent a continuation of agricultural and caretaking traditions. Repeated photos, cross-sections, longitudinal profiles, and vegetation transects at permanent monitoring stations served to evaluate changes in key vegetative and morphological indicators at the study sites. Geologic maps and soil analyses provided a basis for grouping sites to compare their recovery trends and capabilities. This analysis identifies four major ecoregions based on lithology that have different propensities for deterioration and recovery. Sites in meadows derived from the felsic rocks of the Mount Baldy volcanic cone demonstrate unusual diversity, stability, and productivity. Sites in basaltic meadows are prone to downcutting; but they can be successfully treated with combinations of rest from continual grazing and placement of rock-and-sedge riffle formations. Sites in coarse-textured sedimentary drainages below the Mogollon Rim appear slow to change except following major floods. Sites in the fine-textured alluvial valleys of the Carrizo Embayment can develop lush marshlands where water flows are perennial and grazing impacts are managed to promote recovery. Using a hierarchical framework to examine the factors that form riparian wetlands helps to evaluate limitations on their recovery. With a foundation in inherent geologic characteristics that vary across ecoregions, such a framework suggests restoration strategies and treatments that work with the natural processes that originally formed these treasured ecosystems.