Estimates of the abundance and distribution of breeding waterfowl relative to the wetlands mapped by the USFWS National Wetland Inventory for the Prairie Pothole Region were produced for portions of MN, IA, ND, SD, and MT. These estimates are essential for developing decision support tools for strategic habitat conservation, assessment of the breeding waterfowl carrying capacity of the wetland resources, risk of loss of those resources, and assessment of contribution of past conservation efforts in the Region. We used habitat-breeding pair abundance relationship models developed by the HAPET office and USGS to estimate the average wetness and attractiveness of the wetlands mapped by NWI in the PPR. This pair abundance layer is critical for understanding the biological value of wetland resources for breeding waterfowl.

Models to estimate breeding duck pair abundance were first available in 1993 for parts of ND, SD, and MT. The geography where abundance models are available has expanded to include the entire US Prairie Pothole Region. There have been 6 iterations of the models using evolving analytical techniques and additional data collected by the USFWS four square mile survey to improve the predictive qualities of the models

Species-specific estimates are included for mallard, blue-winged teal, northern pintail, northern shoveler, gadwall, canvasback, redhead, lesser scaup, ruddy duck, ring-necked duck, and wood duck.