Chapter 1.0 - History of Wetland and Stream RAMs

Abstract

Rapid assessment methods (RAMs) for wetlands began to be developed in the United States in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, with the initial focus on wildlife habitat. The focus quickly expanded to a more comprehensive examination of a variety of ecosystem services provided by wetlands as well as, more recently, attempts to assess the ecological integrity of wetlands. The initial methods had a national scope, but more recently many governmental agencies have developed versions targeted for specific regions and/or wetland types. These have been developed for both regulatory and nonregulatory purposes. Geographic information systems-based methods for assessing wetlands began to gain attention in the late 1990s. RAMs for streams are more recent and have taken one of two forms—those intended to assess flow duration and those intended to assess broader aspects of stream or riparian condition. Stream flow duration methods began in the late 1990s and continue to the present while stream condition methods began in the early 2000s. These RAMs tend to be specific to particular states or provinces with methods tested and then modified by other (often adjacent) states or provinces for their own purposes. To date, no national method has been developed in the United States or elsewhere.