Wetland Restoration and Enhancement, Chesapeake Bay Watershed

The restoration opportunities were created for both tidal and non-tidal wetlands. For tidal wetland restoration opportunities, the USGS Digital Elevation Model was used to establish the potential boundaries from 2 m above mean sea level to 0 m. For non-tidal wetland opportunities, the boundaries of the Chesapeake Bay Program hydric soils layers were used as potential project extent. Within these regions, the following classification categories were removed from the high resolution dataset: 1. impervious non-road, 2. forest, 3. impervious roads, 4. water, 5. tree canopy over impervious surface, and 6. three wetland categories. These 6 classifications were removed because land uses are either already wetlands or are land uses that could not be restored as wetlands. The areas that remained could potentially be restored as tidal or non-tidal wetlands.

The enhancement opportunities data were developed by selecting the following three classification categories from the high resolution land cover dataset: non-tidal floodplain, tidal wetlands, non-tidal other wetlands. All existing wetlands are proposed as potential wetland enhancement opportunities.