Tidal Marsh Vegetation Communities

Jan 16, 2018 (Last modified Jan 30, 2018)
Created by Northeast
Tidal Marsh Vegetation Communities

About

Salt marshes of the northeastern United States are dynamic landscapes that provide significant ecosystem services to humans across the coast and provide critical habitat to wildlife. These coastal marshes can be separated into several distinct vegetation communities including high and low marsh, which vary in elevation, salinity, and frequency of inundation. Understanding and mapping these vegetation zones is important for regional conservation of habitat for tidal marsh wildlife as well as for tracking the effects of environmental and anthropogenic change on coastal marshes. Remote sensing of these habitats has, until now, been difficult across large spatial scales due to spectral similarities between marsh grass species and the difficulty in remotely sensing a coastal ecosystem across different tidal stages.

This gallery contains Tidal Marsh Vegetation Classification layers describing six vegetation cover types and two bordering cover types found within coastal marsh areas from Maine to Virginia, USA. This layer is the first of its kind to map tidal marsh vegetation communities at this regional extent. The spatial layers are provided at a 3m resolution using 2014-2015 imagery from the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) and elevation data from the National Elevation Dataset (NED). The layers describe the following cover types: 1. High marsh 2. Low marsh 3. Salt pools/pannes 4. Terrestrial border 5. Phragmites australis 6. Mudflat 7. Open Water and 8. Upland.

Three types of data are provided:
  1. A dataset created where the NED digital elevation model (DEM) was available
  2. A dataset created where the DEM was not available; this excludes the Terrestrial border and Upland classes
  3. A dataset that indicates where the DEM was available (#1 above) and where it was not (#2).
Collectively the datasets cover all areas with salt marsh from Maine to Virginia except the upper Chesapeake Bay and the western shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Virginia (areas where Saltmarsh Sparrow is absent). These datasets also exist by analysis zone (n=8) and can be obtained from Mo Correll (contact information below) until the data are provided on Data Basin.

For more information about the development of these layers please contact Mo Correll at Maureen.correll@maine.edu. This set of spatial layers is a product of the Saltmarsh Habitat and Avian Research Program (www.tidalmarshbirds.org).
Tags
tidal, salt, marsh, classification, coast, hurricane sandy, sharp, vegetation

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The Saltmarsh Habitat and Avian Research Program.

Maureen Correll, Wouter Hantson, and Brian J Olsen, University of Maine.

About the Gallery Author

Northeast
with Science Applications, Northeast

Administration account for the Northeast Conservation Planning Atlas.