Geospatial Sciences and Technology
Geospatial Sciences and Technology
The Geospatial Sciences and Technology (GST) program focuses its efforts on providing technical and data development assistance to UMESC and its program partners. The GST teams specialize in; using geospatial (location referenced) and remote sensing technology to collect, create, and analyze geospatial data; and creating decision support tools that make geospatial data and technology more accessible to resource managers and researchers.
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Forest Canopy Gap Dynamics: Quantifying Forest Gaps and Understanding Gap-level Forest Regeneration
Floodplain forest is a major and critical component of the Upper Mississippi River System (UMRS). The current and future condition of floodplain forest on the UMRS is receiving increased attention from managers as the forest appears to be declining and not regenerating. A primary concern is invasive reed canarygrass ( Phalaris arundinacea), Dutch elm disease ( Ophiostoma ulmi and O. novo-ulmi)...
Consequences of forest connectivity from beech bark disease in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
In this study, we are working with Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (PIRO, or Park) in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (Figure 1) to produce multiple geospatial layers of Park forest connectivity to reveal the effects of beech bark disease (BBD). There has been a 92% mortality rate of American beech ( Fagus grandifolia) since BBD was first discovered in the Park in 2001. Park biologists are...
Uncrewed Aircraft System Assets
This page describes the Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS), or drone, program at the Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center (UMESC), current to March 1, 2025. All equipment is purchased and maintained in accordance with the Department of the Interior (DOI) Office of Aviation Services (OAS) policy. All pilots are certified through FAA Part 107 and DOI A-450 training and are required to fly every...
Benthic Mapping – Illinois River Benthic Mapping to Support Invasive Asian Carp Research
According to the 2016 Monitoring and Response Plan for Asian carp in the Mississippi River Basin, there is little to no information regarding Asian carp behavior and habitat use in invaded areas (1). There are some studies and anecdotal information showing that Asian carp are occurring in certain macrohabitats, specifically the main channel border during low summer flows and backwaters during...
Decision Support Systems
A Decision Support System (DSS) can be defined in many ways. The working definition the Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center (UMESC) uses is, "A spatially based computer application or data that assists a researcher or manager in making decisions." This is quite a broad definition and it needs to be, as the possibilities for types of DSS are limited only by the user group and the developer...
Submersed Aquatic Vegetation Modeling Output Online
The ability to predict the distribution of submersed aquatic vegetation in the Upper Mississippi River on the basis of physical or chemical variables is useful to resource managers. Wildlife managers have a keen interest in advanced estimates of food quantity such as American wildcelery (Vallisneria americana) population status to give out more informed advisories to hunters before the fall...
LINK: ArcGIS Tools for Conservation Planning
Allows managers and planners to rapidly assess landscape attributes and link these attributes with species/habitat information Provides resource managers a means to compare the conservation potential of local management units with that of the surrounding county, state, or region Can be applied to any taxa or suite of taxa and any landscape, given that spatial data layers representing habitats are...
Census Stop Tool
The Census Stop Tool is a GIS tool that creates random points along a line layer while maintaining a minimum distance between points. The user has the option of selecting one of two random point placement methods. The Census Stop Tool is available as an ArcMap 9.x extension. This tool is designed to facilitate road based surveys by reducing the potential for double sampling.
Split By Attribute Tool
The Split By Attribute Tool is a customization of ArcMap. The tool takes a single shapefile and splits it into many shapefiles based on the unique values of a chosen field. If the user has made a selection on a shapefile, then only those features that have been selected will be split. Each output layer will named with the following structure: user supplied base name + split value.
Adjacency For WinBUGS Tool
The Adjacency For WinBUGS Tool is a customization of ArcMap. The tool iteratively processes each polygon within a selected layer and creates a text file of polygonal adjacency where each polygon is identified by a unique Adj_ID value. The output of this tool is used in WinBUGS (MRC Biostatistics Unit Cambridge) by the car.normal, car.l1, and mv.car conditional autoregressive distributions.
Percent Edge Tool
The Percent Edge Tool is a customization of ArcMap that analyzes polygonal shapefiles. The Percent Edge Tool calculates area, compactness, perimeter, edge lengths with adjacent polygons, and percentage of edge with adjacent polygons. This information can then be summarized into a pivot table and queried.Example query: I want to know where are all of the large, compact, woody wetland polygons that...
A Tool for Prioritizing Management Units at Morris Wetland Management District
Where are most important places to direct conservation effort? Such a simple question is not answered simply. There are a myriad of priorities, constraints, and capacities, both scientific and socio-economic, which in combination guide the allocation of management effort. An honest accounting of these priorities, constraints, and capacities is essential for efficient, effective action.