Native Plant Community Policy for Roadside Vegetation Management

About the Program

Category: Transportation (Best in Category)

Year: 2011

The Native Plant Community Policy (NPCP) was developed as a means of addressing an objective put forth by The Roadside Native Plant Initiative. NPCP was created to identify, care for, and preserve native plant communities (including prairies, woodlands, wetlands, and mixtures of these communities) in Johnson County’s rights-of-way. It is the goal of the Policy to use the data gathered to improve roadside plant community management and protection and to provide a more fact-based mechanism to develop objective criteria for evaluating and ranking the needs of these plant communities. The second stage in the completion of NPCP was the creation of “reduced impact management techniques” in order to reduce disturbance of the highest quality roadside plant communities. Overall, the NPCP has been an overwhelming success. Roadsides in Johnson County are now managed not only for brush control, visibility, noxious weed management, snow drifting, etc. but also for preservation and enhancement of the native plant communities within them.