WETLAND HABITAT CONSERVATION
Photo by Rio de la Vista
maximize conservation investments. Conservation goals and objectives for other important habitats, such as aspen and dry forest, can be referenced in the state-based 2005 Coordinated Implementation Plans for Bird Conservation. The conservation of wetland habitat continues to be a priority for the IWJV, dating back to the JVâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inception. Wetlands are characterized by high biological diversity and productivity that make them among the most important wildlife habitats in the Intermountain West. Wetlands also have other significant ecological, economic, and social values (IWJV 1995, McKinstry 2004, Donnelly and Vest 2012a). Much of the Intermountain West is characterized as North American Desert Biome (58%) resulting in water-limited systems where limited precipitation combined with high evaporation rates further constricts the distribution of water resources (Donnelly and Vest 2012a). Wetlands in the Intermountain West are therefore highly dynamic systems but are also widely dispersed (Fig. 1), comprising roughly 18.4 million acres according to the National Wetlands Inventory (<2% of the total surface area of the IWJV).
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Figure 1 W etland density and distribution assessed using available digital National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) data and 16 Km² sampling grid. Results were interpolated using an inverse weighted distance technique. NWI data was obtained from the NWI program at http:www.fws.wetlands/Data// Download.html.
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