MSMA Frequently Asked Questions
This
page answers frequently asked questions about the Moist-Soil Management
Advisor software. Questions have been organized by: Installation,
Data Entry, Consultation,
Other Questions. Click one of the questions
below to get an answer. If you are having trouble with the Moist-Soil
Management Advisor, have a question about how to use a particular feature,
or you do not find the answer to your question here, contact our technical
support at msma_support@usgs.gov.
Installation
What are the hardware requirements
for running the software?
Data Entry
What units should be included in
my database?
What portion of a moist-soil unit should be included
in my database?
What management capabilities should be specified
for a moist-soil unit?
What if I manage one part of a unit differently than
the other part?
Consultation
Why aren't there any management
units visible in the map?
Other Questions
What is moist-soil management?
Can I get a printed version of the user's
guides?
What does it cost to obtain the software?
Installation
What are the hardware requirements
for running the software?
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Data Entry
What units should be included
in my database?
- Units that normally are used to produce moist-soil resources,
even if they are occasionally put into agriculture or a semi-permanent
water regime to control vegetation problems, should be included in your
database. Units that only rarely (e.g., 2-3 years out of 10) provide
moist-soil resources should not be included in your database.
Specific examples of units not to include are:
- lakes or semi-permanent marshes that only occasionally dry up
- units that are almost always in agriculture because they can only
be flooded occasionally
- units that primarily serve as water supply pools or drainage “ditches.”
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What portion of a moist-soil
unit should be included in my database?
- Under some conditions, the Moist-soil Management Advisor will provide
more reasonable suggestions if the description of a unit in the database
is slightly different than the area actually surrounded by levees.
For example, if there are willow trees in a borrow ditch that runs through
a unit, you may not want to include the acres of ditch in the area considered
for moist-soil management (because those acres are not manipulated to
produce moist-soil vegetation), and you may not want to include the
willows in your vegetation survey (you would not consider bulldozing
the entire unit merely because there are willows in the ditch).
Other situations where you might exclude portions of a unit from the
database description are:
- a low corner of a unit that cannot be dewatered because of design
flaws and almost always supports vegetation considered to be of
low desirability with respect to moist-soil management;
- the upper end of a unit contains some desirable hardwood trees,
which means water must be drawn off this part of the unit by late
winter to avoid killing the trees, but the majority of the unit
(the true moist-soil portion) can be drawn down anytime during the
spring or summer;
- an edge of a unit is planted in hardstem bulrush to act as a screen
from an auto tour route (hardstem bulrush is generally treated as
a problem by the system, but in this case you would not want to
control it).
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What management capabilities
should be specified for a moist-soil unit?
- In general, you should only specify management capabilities that can
be implemented in most years on the units (e.g., 8 years out of 10).
However, there are several circumstances under which the drawdown and
flooding capabilities of a unit might be described differently than
what is physically possible. Some examples include:
- A unit can physically be dewatered at anytime during the spring
or summer but in actual practice must be drawn down before late
spring because it is a Natural Area. In this case, the database
should show only late winter and early spring as possible drawdowns.
- In the past, it has been possible on occasion to dewater a unit
in a particular season (e.g., late winter) but these conditions
have occurred infrequently (e.g., only 2 years out of 10).
Drawdown in late winter should probably not be included as a drawdown
capability for this unit.
- It is possible to flood a unit in early fall by pumping, but the
cost of pumping is prohibitive. Since it is too costly to
actually implement this management option, it should not be included
in the database as a flooding capability.
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What if I manage one part of
a unit differently from the other part?
- Some moist-soil units are managed as if they were composed of sub-units,
even though these sub-units are not separated by levees. In a
unit with a distinct elevation gradient, the lower portion might be
managed differently than the upper portion because of differences in
vegetation. For example, the lower portion might contain
moist-soil vegetation while the upper end is used for coop farming.
Additionally, large units may encompass more than one soil type, resulting
in the development of different vegetation communities in response to
a similar treatment (e.g., same drawdown time). The Moist-Soil
Management Advisor can handle such sub-units if you specify each one
as if it were a separate unit (e.g., Unit-1A and Unit-1B) and specify
the appropriate hydrologic connections between them. For example,
consider the situation mentioned above where the upper and lower ends
of the unit are managed differently. Units 1A and 1B should be
entered in the database as if they were separate units. However, since
there is not independent water control for each of these "units,"
the connection from Unit 1B and the input to Unit 1A should be specified
as having no levee or control structure. The section entitled
“Hydrology Data Entry Overview” (and subsequent sections)
in the Data Entry User's Guide contain more complete discussions of
specifying hydrologic connections between units.
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Consultation
Why aren't there any management
units visible in the map?
- The most likely cause of this problem is that the zoom factor is not
set correctly for your map. Use the "Zoom In" and "Zoom
Out" buttons on the map to change the scale until you see your
full map.
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Other Questions
What is moist-soil management?
- Moist-soil management involves water level control and direct manipulations
of vegetation to simulate the dynamics of seasonally-flooded wetlands.
The primary goal of moist-soil management is to increase the production
of natural foods for waterfowl and to optimally make that food available
during migration. As a secondary benefit, moist-soil management
provides habitat for a number of other waterbirds including shorebirds
and wading birds.
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Can I get printed
versions of the user's guides?
- Yes! The user's guides, in addition to being available on-line
within the software, are also available as Microsoft Word files.
If you have Microsoft Word 6.0 or later on your computer, you can download
the two user's guides and print them. If you do not have Microsoft
Word 6.0 or later, you can download the Microsoft Word Viewer along
with the user's guides files; Microsoft Word Viewer allows you to display
and print Microsoft Word files even if you don't have Microsoft Word
installed on your computer. Complete instructions for downloading
and printing the user's guides are available from our download
page.
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What does it cost to obtain the
software?
- The software can be obtained free of charge from our download
page.
Also at FORT
U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
