Louisiana Barrier Island Comprehensive Monitoring Program - 2008-2016 habitat change, Acadiana Bays Region

The Barrier Island Comprehensive Monitoring (BICM) program was developed by Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) and is implemented as a component of the System Wide Assessment and Monitoring Program (SWAMP). The program uses both historical data and contemporary data collections to assess and monitor changes in the aerial and subaqueous extent of islands, habitat types, sediment texture and geotechnical properties, environmental processes, and vegetation composition. Examples of BICM datasets include still and video aerial photography for documenting shoreline changes, shoreline positions, habitat mapping, land change analyses, light detection and ranging (lidar) surveys for topographic elevations, single-beam and swath bathymetry, and sediment grab samples. For more information about the BICM program, see Kindinger and others (2013).

The U.S. Geological Survey, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center provides support to the BICM program through the development of habitat map products using aerial imagery and lidar elevation data and assessing change in habitats over time. These data provide a snapshot of barrier island habitats and can be combined with other past and/or future maps to monitor these valuable natural resources over time. The current effort of this habitat mapping program includes developing habitat maps for 2008 and 2015-16 for the following BICM regions: 1) West Chenier; 2) East Chenier; 3) Acadiana Bays (only Marsh Island); 4) Early Lafourche Delta; 5) Late Lafourche Delta; 6) Modern Delta (only Chaland Headland and Shell Island); and 7) Chandeleur Islands. The BICM program has developed two habitat classification schemes which include a detailed 15-class habitat scheme and a general eight-class habitat scheme. The detailed scheme was used for this habitat mapping effort and builds off the general scheme used in previous BICM habitat mapping efforts (Fearnley and others, 2009). The additional classes developed in the detailed scheme are primarily used to further delineate various dune habitats, separate marsh and mangrove, and distinguish between beach and unvegetated barrier flat habitats.

The habitat change analyses in this product depict and summarize habitat change between 2008 and 2015-2016 per BICM reach. The results from these analyses are summarized in two habitat change products. The first product depicts change in land and water coverage and the second product highlights changes based on inundation zones (for example, water, intertidal-unvegetated, intertidal-vegetated, supratidal, and developed/shoreline protection). This product also includes recommended symbology for these data layers. Please see the Entity and Attribute Information section in this metadata file for the BICM barrier island habitat and change class descriptions and the Processing Steps section for information on methodology for map development.