Wetland Landscape Characterization
Science Center Objects
Wetlands purify and store our water, process carbon and nutrients and serve a crucial role in the life cycle of a wide range of flora and fauna. Wetland disturbance from urban development or agriculture can alter the natural flow of runoff and increase the risk for flooding.
Landsat data and National Agriculture Imagery Program aerial photography of the same area in Stutsman County, North Dakota, illustrate the dynamic nature of prairie pothole wetlands in both (a) dry and (b and c) wet conditions.
(Public domain.)
Most scientific products created with an eye to understanding these biological hotspots offer only a glimpse of wetland conditions – historical snapshots in time that represent static conditions in dynamic systems.
At the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, the study of wetlands is focused on a landscape scale over long periods of time. Researchers leverage decades of Landsat satellite data to monitor and quantify the impact of weather, climate and land use on vegetation condition and water resources.
The goal is to offer products that include or enable the evaluation of spatial relationships between and among wetlands and landscape features, and to understand how changes to the land influence hydrology. The baseline born of 30 years of remotely-sensed data compliments existing wetland classifications and offers an opportunity to map, monitor and project long-term change.
The work produced by the Wetland Landscape Characterization project at EROS informs and is informed by the Land Change Monitoring, Assessment and Projection program, an innovative approach to land change study that uses Landsat Analysis Ready Data to characterize historical and near real time land change at any location across the Landsat record, dating back to the 1980s.
Learn more about LCMAP here.
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Date published: September 19, 2018Status: ActiveLand Cover and Change Monitoring
Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) is a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) science initiative being implemented at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, that centers on structured, operational, ongoing, and timely collection and delivery of accurate and relevant data, information, and knowledge on land use, cover, and condition.
Contacts: Jesslyn Brown -
Date published: September 18, 2018Status: ActiveInland Lakes, Rivers and Streams
Water bodies surrounded by land serve as sources of fresh drinking water, play host to millions of species of fish, underwater vegetation and wildlife and maintain the vibrancy of surrounding ecosystems. These water bodies can also be hubs for recreational activities such as boating, fishing, waterskiing, swimming that boost local economies.
Contacts: Jennifer Rover
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Year Published: 2015Mapping wetlands and surface water in the Prairie Pothole Region of North America: Chapter 16
The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) is one of the most highly productive wetland regions in the world. Prairie Pothole wetlands serve as a primary feeding and breeding habitat for more than one-half of North America’s waterfowl population, as well as a variety of songbirds, waterbirds, shorebirds, and other wildlife. During the last century,...
Rover, Jennifer R.; Mushet, David M.
Landsat classification of surface-water presence during multiple years to assess response of playa wetlands to climatic variability across the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative region
To improve understanding of the distribution of ecologically important, ephemeral wetland habitats across the Great Plains, the occurrence and distribution of surface water in playa wetland complexes were documented for four different years across the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC) region. This information is important...
Manier, Daniel J.; Rover, Jennifer R. Controls on the geochemical evolution of Prairie Pothole Region lakes and wetlands over decadal time scales
One hundred sixty-seven Prairie Pothole lakes, ponds and wetlands (largely lakes) previously analyzed chemically during the late 1960’s and early to mid-1970’s were resampled and reanalyzed in 2011–2012. The two sampling periods differed climatically. The earlier sampling took place during normal to slightly dry conditions, whereas the latter...
Goldhaber, Martin B.; Mills, Christopher T.; Mushet, David M.; McCleskey, R. Blaine; Rover, Jennifer Detecting emergence, growth, and senescence of wetland vegetation with polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data
Wetlands provide ecosystem goods and services vitally important to humans. Land managers and policymakers working to conserve wetlands require regularly updated information on the statuses of wetlands across the landscape. However, wetlands are challenging to map remotely with high accuracy and consistency. We investigated the use of multitemporal...
Gallant, Alisa L.; Kaya, Shannon G.; White, Lori; Brisco, Brian; Roth, Mark F.; Sadinski, Walter J.; Rover, Jennifer