Northeast Regional Floristic Quality Assessment Tools for Wetland Assessments

Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA) is a robust, botanically based method for assessing the quality of ecological communities and natural areas. Integral to the method is that each native plant species in a state or region is assigned a Coefficient of Conservatism, or C value, based on its response to stressors. In the Northeast Region (including six New England states and New York), C values were completed at the state level in 2011, whereby every species in each state was assigned a C value based on statewide “average behavior.” But jurisdictional units are not optimal for addressing changes in species behavior. For this reason, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC) have supported the development of ecoregional C values, including in the Northeast.