MISSION: WATER 60 OCEAN & COASTAL WATERS Conservancy scientists are working with a range of partners to restore more natural water flow to the forest, thus ensuring better natural conditions for crawfish, wildlife, and other species that rely on the basin’s myriad habitats for survival. Before restoration begins, ecologists like Joe have an incredible opportunity to obtain scientific information that will help them understand the problems the Atchafalaya is facing – and the best ways to fix them. “The hydrological restoration that we’re planning for the basin has never been done before, so we want to document current conditions as well as conditions following restoration,” Joe explained. “One of the best ways we can tell if restoration is working is by the way water flows and how the back swamp areas interact with the river.” To establish their baseline data, Joe and his team have purchased and set up EXO sondes from YSI to track a wide range of water quality variables in the basin, including water levels, temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity. “This is the third partnership we’ve done with YSI,” Joe said. “We collaborated on research in the Illinois River at the Conservancy’s Emiquon preserve, at our Mollicy Farms project in Louisiana, and now the Atchafalaya." "Our long-standing partnership is yielding great knowledge about floodplain restoration," he added. As part of the world’s third largest river basin, the Atchafalaya is used heavily for shipping and industry. Man-made locks, canals, levees, and water control structures that were created to control flooding, extract timber and mineral resources, and move ships and other vessels to and from the river have changed the way the river flows. The result is that the Great Swamp Forest that surrounds the river has suffered. In some places, water flows the wrong way, causing trapped, stagnate waters and long-term flooding that hurt the forests. Still other places suffer from too much or too little sediment delivered from the Atchafalaya River. This altered hydrology hurts aquatic species, such as crawfish, that so many people rely on to make their living. The degrading of the river system “plumbing” has presented a sustainability challenge to both local residents and the wild life that depend upon a stable ecosystem. “For my entire life, I’ve been enamored by the Mississippi River and how it is connected to its tributaries and distributaries, like the Atchafalaya,” Joe said. “As I got older I realized how important the system was ecologically, and I’ve seen first-hand how hydrologic manipulations by man can have a negative impact on the environment.” To address this challenge head on, The Nature Conservancy purchased 5,359 acres in the Bayou Sorrel region of the Atchafalaya River Basin as a first step in a long-term vision to conserve America’s Great Swamp Forest. Atchafalaya Locals (from left-to-right): • Bronze Frog (Rana clamitans) • Great Blue Heron (Ardea Herodias) • Juvenile American Alligator (A. mississippiensis) • Banded Water Snake (Nerodia fasciata) Audra Melton TNC Audra Melton TNC