Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Great Rivers CESU
G20AS00109
Grants.gov  https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=327904

The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research in how large-scale flood disturbance events impact tree survivorship and resulting floodplain forest community dynamics along the Upper Mississippi River.

Specifically, this study will examine the effects of the 2019 flood event in 8 reaches of the UMRS to:

1. Assess forest responses to two different large-scale flood disturbance events by using the same inventory sites and protocols used in a 1993 flood study
2. Identify forest successional patterns following large scale flood disturbance events by examining and comparing survivorship following the 1993 and 2019 flood events
3. Predict individual species and community susceptibility to varying degrees of inundation expressed in the 1993 and 2019 flood events
4. Identify and compare regeneration patterns, including species invasions, following the 1993 and 2019 large-scale flood disturbances
5. Allow managers to make better decisions regarding forest structure and composition in response to changes in flood intensity, duration and frequency.

This project will inform river restoration and management by quantifying the degree to which large magnitude flood events contribute to forest loss, changes in species composition, successional dynamics, recruitment of new tree cohorts, and/or invasion by non-native species in the UMRS.