Natural Resources Level One Inventories: What are the Needs and Process for Corps Projects?

Abstract : Engineer Regulation (ER) 1130-2-540, Section 2-2.c(1) mandates that natural resources inventories be conducted at Corps of Engineers operational projects in order to provide the data needed to make the best management decisions for project lands. However, since inventory standards were not established on Corps projects nationwide, many districts and projects developed their own types and levels of inventories to meet specific project needs. Methods used in these inventories were highly variable, and no criteria existed for standardizing data for upward reporting. Thus, prior to 2005, data collected on different projects were often inconsistent, and there was no protocol for comparing and summarizing natural resources data across project and district boundaries. To address this issue, the Corps Stewardship Advisory Team (SAT) prepared a Statement of Need (SON) for natural resource inventories on project lands (Krause et al. 2004). The SAT established that professional natural resources management must be tracked and monitored through a consistent inventory protocol and related performance measures that would be implemented nationally. The basic inventory to be conducted by all Corps projects was identified as the Natural Resources Level One Inventory. A current budget-based performance measure has been established to track trends in completing the inventory at project sites. Projects can now enter their inventory results into the Corps Operations and Management Business Information Link (OMBIL) using standards described in this paper for upward reporting (Figure 1). OMBIL results will also be used to automatically calculate performance measures to complete the Natural Resources Level One Inventory.