* Completion expected within three years of project initiation. The target audience would be technical experts, natural resource professionals, and the general public.

Outcome: Modify the Riparian Ecosystem Management Model to work in Midwest systems

* Work is already underway to achieve this objective. Completion expected within two years of project initiation. It is anticipated that the model would be validated and a regional set of default variables constructed by the end of the second year of the project. The target audience for the model would be researchers, technical experts, and natural resource professionals.

Outcome: CD-based interactive tools including a focus on scenario analysis that incorporate biophysical and hydrological models and the functional analysis of region-wide riparian areas

* Completion expected within three years of project initiation. These CD-based interactive tools would be produced in conjunction with the biophysical and hydrological models and guides above. The target audiences would be researchers, technical experts, natural resource professionals and watershed groups.

Objective 1, sub-objective c): Integrate available geographic information system data for a subset of watersheds to address landscape-scale questions

Outcome: Geographic information system models predicting species presence/absence, abundance, and responses to different management practices

* Completion expected within three years of project initiation. The product would be GIS data layers and information on CD and the Web. The target audience will be broad and range from wildlife scientists to watershed groups. These products could be used in conjunction with GIS/GAP information from Objective 1a above.

Social Component: Our social research component will facilitate the understanding of the barriers that restrict land owner participation in coordinated riparian management programs and offer alternative strategies to surmount the barriers.

Objective 2, sub-objective a): Evaluate alternative riparian management systems in terms of cost effectiveness and benefits.

Outcome: Completion expected within three years of project initiation. Geographic information system models of alternative riparian management systems in terms of cost effectiveness and benefits at a watershed scale across agronomic practices and weather conditions

* Completion of these products is expected near the end of the project. Product would be geographic information system data and information on CD and the Web, and printed material specific to cost effectiveness and benefits. The target audience will be broad and range from economists, social scientists to watershed groups.

Objective 2, sub-objective b): Identify programs to enhance adoption of riparian management systems.

Outcome: Geographic information system or other decision tools to improve water quality and adoption

Outcome: Develop best management practices to improve water quality

* Completion expected within four years of project initiation. This objective will incorporate products from Objective 1. Product would be geographic information system data and information on CD and the Web, and printed material specific to cost effectiveness and benefits. The target audience will be broad and range from economists, social scientists to watershed groups.

Objective 2, sub-objective c): Identify barriers to landowner adoption of appropriate practices (best management practices) and determine whether they can be overcome.

Outcome: Adoption-diffusion model of watershed opinion leaders will predict their behavior in regard to best management practice adoption for riparian management areas

* Completion expected within four years of project initiation.

Integration Component: An integrated research framework will help to better formulate adoption strategies on individual properties and along waterways at a watershed level and help inform efficient and effective management and policies.

Objective 3): Develop integrated tools needed for land management and policy development, to select and enhance adoption of preferred riparian management systems.

Outcome: Decision making-integrated model (biophysical and social) to inform and guide policy related to riparian management areas. The Bear, Big, and Sugar Creek experiences can be a practical guide using a stepwise process to obtain participation of land managers and engage collective community support and responsibility for riparian systems

* Completion of these products is expected near the end of the project. The target audience will be broad and range from economists, social scientists, natural resource professionals to watershed groups.

Outcome: Develop a practical management guide to alternative practices for conserving, maintaining and restoring riparian areas

* Completion of these products is expected near the end of the project. The target audience will be broad and range from economists, social scientists, natural resource professionals to watershed groups.

Additional Contributions:
Outcome: Research and demonstration sites, workshops for biophysical, social, and integrated themes.

* Many of the research and demonstrations sites are already established and conducting research. Additional sites will be established in the first year of the project. These sites will be utilized for training and technology transfer to a broad audience, including individuals from USDA-NRCS, state Departments of Natural Resources or Agriculture, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, County Conservation Boards, Extension Personnel, and Non-governmental Organizations.

Outcome: Replicated data collection from several sites across ecoregions to examine differences in geomorphic setting, stream physical characteristics, land use, and land management perceptions.

* Data collection is ongoing at many sites across the North Central Region. To assure coordination of this research, investigators will meet within the first year of the project to establish unified objectives and protocols for data collection among the sites.

Outcome: Bring together Midwestern scientists working in the general area of riparian research for the purpose of exchanging information from existing research efforts and developing new, more broadly based research, focused on addressing the objectives of this proposal

* To date project participants have met four times to organize and develop the project. For the duration of the project, the NC committee will meet annually. Contingent upon funding, a quarter-time program coordinator will be chosen by the executive committee within three months of project initiation. The executive committee will meet twice each year and will be updated periodically by the program coordinator on matters of interest to the committee. Semiannual symposia will be organized for the purpose of exchanging information from existing research efforts.

Information and Technology Transfer: This project is intended to serve the needs of a wide range of audiences and several of the objectives (2c, 3) are intended specifically to identify programs to enhance adoption of riparian management systems, and to guide policy making, educational resources, and strategies that are focused toward helping land managers improve management of riparian areas. Some of our target audiences will include individual land owners and managers. We anticipate that those people will find most useful practical and tested formats such as best management practice manuals and decision guides useful for on-site design and evaluation. Other people interested in our work will include researchers, agency collaborators, and program managers. We feel those people will be more concerned with larger, more generic questions and that they will be interested in a wide variety of formats for transmitting information. Extension faculty from several participating states (OH, MO, IL) are explicitly interested in the technology transfer facets of the project.