Best Management Practices (BMP’s) are typically developed by large landowners such as state and federal agencies and forestry industries to optimally manage their natural resources.  Best management practices for seasonal pools address the pool itself and the surrounding habitat. 

The goal is to protect sufficient habitat to preserve seasonal pool species while allowing sustainable levels of activities such as logging.  For example, if a tract of land is to be cut for timber purposes, BMP’s might delineate a series of buffer zones around a seasonal pool.  Activities permitted within those buffer zones would be defined, with greater restrictions applied with increasing proximity to the pool.

Best management practices are needed to establish balance between resource use and protection.  Forestry practices can affect seasonal pools by altering leaf input, ground water flow, sunlight penetration, sedimentation and condition of upland habitat. Ruts created by logging can impede amphibian migration and insecticide usage on the surrounding woodland affects abundance of insect food sources and has been shown to lower reproductive rates of amphibians.

Some best management practices developed in other states include not cutting more than 50 % of the basal area within 50 feet of a pool, not depositing slash into the pool basin and encouraging foresters to avoid creating ruts or disturbances on the land surface that may interfere with water flow in and around the pools (Colburn, 2004).

Land use planning and zoning laws are another way that seasonal pools can be protected.  Like best management practices, land use plans and zoning ordinances can be designed to protect seasonal pools and their surrounding areas while allowing sustainable levels of development activities.

Best management plants, zoning laws, and other actions such as conservation restrictions and easements, direct land acquisition, and even creating new pools for species to use are important pieces to seasonal pools conservation.  Successful protection efforts will protect individual seasonal pools or pool clusters, their associated upland habitats, and corridors between seasonal pool groups, wetlands and permanent water bodies.

Important questions to consider when developing BMPs and land use plans:

What activities are intended for the planning area?

• What are the potential impacts on seasonal pools?
• Where are seasonal pools located in the planning area?
• What are the biological and physical characteristics of the pools?

The following categories are useful when planning management of seasonal pools and the surrounding landscape.  Appropriate activities can be defined for each zone (adapted from Calhoun and deMaynadier, 2004).

• Seasonal pool depression:  the area the seasonal pool occupies when it is fully inundated in the spring.   This is the critical breeding habitat for seasonal pool animals.  Important considerations are in-pool vegetation, hydrology, and water quality.
• Seasonal pool protection zone:  also called the seasonal pool envelope (Brown, 2005), this is the area immediately surrounding the seasonal pool that has a high level of influence on conditions in the seasonal pool itself.  This area also experiences high densities of adult amphibians during breeding season and high densities of recently metamorphosed amphibians leaving the pool in the summer and fall.  Important considerations are forest cover, ground cover and soil quality.
• Seasonal pool life zone:  also called seasonal pool terrestrial habitat (Brown, 2005), this is the area utilized by the terrestrial seasonal pool adults for feeding and overwintering.  This buffer should encompass as much of the adult habitat as possible.  Estimates on how far seasonal pool amphibians travel from the seasonal pool vary from 50 meters to 1200 meters depending on the type of disturbance and the species using the pool.
• Seasonal pool corridors:  connectivity between pools is important for long term conservation of seasonal pool species.  Forested, unfragmented corridors are especially important in areas that support seasonal pool clusters where many pools are found together and occur less than ¼ mile apart.  Important considerations are forest cover, ground cover and soil quality, and connectivity (lack of fragmentation).

Additional information on BMPs for seasonal pool habitas can be found in:

Brown, Lesley J. and Robin E. Jung. 2005.  An Introduction to Mid-Atlantic Seasonal Pools, EPA/903/B-05/001.  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Mid-Atlantic Integrated Assessment, Ft. Meade, Maryland.  Website last accessed January 20, 2006 at http://epa.gov/maia/html/SeasonalPools_PDF.html.

Calhoun, A. J. K and M. W. Klemens. 2002.  Best development practices: Conserving pool-breeding amphibians in residential and commercial developments in the northeastern United States.  MCA Technical Paper No. 5, Metropolitan Conservation Alliance.  Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York.

Calhoun, A. J. K. and P. deMaynadier. 2004. Forestry habitat management guidelines for vernal pool wildlife.  MCA Technical Paper No. 6, Metropolitan Conservation Alliance, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York.

Colburn, Elizabeth A.  2004.  Vernal Pools: Natural History and Conservation.  The McDonald and Woodward Publishing Company, Blacksburg, VA.