Development of a Rapid Floristic Quality Assessment

Over the past 20 years a number of wetland Rapid Assessment Methods (RAMs) have been developed and successfully used for a variety of wetland monitoring and assessment purposes. These include functions and values RAMs primarily used for regulatory purposes such as the Minnesota Routine Assessment Method (MnRAM; MN BWSR 2010), and RAMs that focus on assessing wetland condition such as those developed in Ohio (Mack 2001) and California (Collins et al. 2008). Typically RAMs are qualitative in nature, where a series of categorical questions are answered based on simple and easily obtainable field observations. The common thread of all RAMs is the reliance on coarser information in exchange for the ability to provide that information within a reasonable or attainable timeframe. Rapid methods have been defined as those that can be completed with no more than a half day in the field and a half day of office preparation (Fennessy et al. 2004). This degree of on-site/rapid/qualitative based assessment has been described as being Level 2 in the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) hierarchical monitoring and assessment classification, falling in between landscape scale (Level 1) and on-site/intensive sampling/quantitative based (Level 3) assessment EPA 2006.