Map ORR Wetlands Vector

This vector map depicts the location of most wetlands on the Oak Ridge Reservation. All wetlands, however, are not depicted. Efforts to identify and map ORR wetlands began in 1990 when wetlands were identified by the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) (produced by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service based on aerial photographs) (Cunningham and Pounds 1991) . The abundance of hydrophytic plants was used as a field indicator of wetlands. Time constraints prevented the use of the three criteria (presence of hydric soils, wetland hydrology, and dominance by hydrophytic plants) designated by the Federal Interagency Committee for Delineating Jurisdictional Wetlands (1989) for identifying wetlands. Of the 122 site visits made, 90 supported hydrophytic vegetation. The NWI maps missed 29 of the wetlands sites identified by field visits and 25 of the sites identified as wetlands by NWI were found to contain no hydrophytic vegetation during field visits.

This data set has been further updated by thorough field surveys of smaller regions of the ORR such as Bear Creek Valley Site (Rosensteel and Trettin 1993, Rosensteel 1998). This data set was last updated in 1999.

Cunningham, M. and L. Pounds. 1991. Resource Management Plan for the Oak Ridge Reservation.
Volume 28: Wetlands on the Oak Ridge Reservation. ORNL/NERP-5. Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Federal Interagency Committee for Delineating Jurisdictional Wetlands. 1989. Federal Manual for
Identifying and Delineating Jurisdictional Wetlands. U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and U.S.D.A. Soil Conservation Service, Washington D. C.

Rosensteel, B.A. 1998. Reconnaissance Survey of Previously Delineated Wetlands and Additional Areas on the East Bear Creek Valley Site for the Proposed On-Site Waste Management Facility. ORNL/M-6580. Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Rosensteel, B.A. and C. C. Trettin. 1993. Identification and characterization of wetlands in the Bear Creek Watershed. Y/TS-1016. Lockheed Martin Energy Systems, Environmental Management Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.