Monitoring of the ecological health in mountain landscapes is difficult. Spatial and temporal variation in climate, hydrology, geology, and disturbance events makes identification of status and trends in the health of biotic communities challenging. To control for some of the natural variability of climate and geology in the park complex, a system for monitoring key abiotic and biotic components at a range of scales is needed. This system must include monitoring of key functional components of the landscape, including watersheds, landforms, and evidence of disturbances that influence habitat and the health and distribution of biotic communities. We believe that Watershed Analysis provides the best system for organizing long-term ecological monitoring of terrestrial and aquatic systems in mountain parks.
Watersheds are important for several reasons.
First, they define the ranges of plants and animals. They also are systems that integrate climatic, geologic, hydrologic, and biotic components in the creation and destruction of habitat as they move vast quantities of water and sediment from source areas in high mountains to low-elevation valley floors. These watersheds represent a range in conditions from marine west slope to arid east slope, a range in bedrock types, and a range in amount of glacial cover. Landforms are key components of watersheds, and provide information on geologic processes, geologic hazards, ecological disturbance, and are an initial mapping unit for a soils map. In the absence of detailed soils maps for North Cascades NPS Complex, landforms represent the next-best feature to inventory.