Hierarchical Modeling of Fen Hydrology across Multiple Scales

Significantly increased groundwater withdrawals, intensive agriculture, and urbanization have caused a loss of biodiversity in wetland habitats; especially evident in groundwater dependent wetlands. An example of this phenomenon is Michigan’s prairie fens - habitats to some of the rarest and globally unique species, including the federally listed endangered species. Efforts to conserve and restore these groundwater dependent ecosystems are, however, hampered by lack of understanding of complex fen hydrology. In this paper, we investigate 10 carefully selected fen sites, with a goal to systematically improve our understanding of the underlying fen flow regimes, landscape connections, and how local and regional groundwater flow systems interact to control fen ecology. We achieve this by applying the Michigan “hierarchical” groundwater modeling system live-linked a GIS-based, statewide hydrological and ecological database.