Monthly Raster Imagery, Historic Wetland Boundaries, and Management Period Mean Images for the Cebolla Spring Wetland in New Mexico

Alluvial wetland ecosystems, such as the Cebolla Creek spring-fed wetland in east-central New Mexico, serve as biodiversity hotspots and directly affect processes such as water cycling and carbon sequestration. However, these systems are highly vulnerable to degradation because of drought, groundwater pumping, and channel incision. The "Zeedyk" approach for restoration employs methods including Natural Infrastructure in Dryland Streams (NIDS), such as rock detention structures, beaver dams and their analogs, plug and ponds, and others, to reverse these impacts and help to restore the wetland system.

This study applies a collection of historic aerial imagery and satellite remote sensing data to asses the impacts of a 28-year restoration project aimed at rehabilitating the Cebolla Creek wetland. The aerial imagery, available for 18 separate years from 1935 to 2024, was used to map the spatial extent of the wetland over time. The satellite imagery was used to quantify the temporally and spatially explicit changes in vegetation greenness and wetness resulting from restoration applications over a 40-year period on a monthly time scale from January 1985 through December 2024. Wetness was measured using the Normalized Difference Infrared Index (NDII) and greenness was measured using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Additionally, the satellite imagery was used to quantify restoration impacts by averaging monthly images across a series of four management periods and then measuring the difference to quantify overall change. Based on these results, a series of subregions were identified that experienced unique signatures of wetness and greenness as a result of their respective geographic location and restoration history, including the Spring-Fed Wetland, the Expanded Wetland, and both Upstream and Downstream Channels and Meadows. 

This data release consists of a series of both satellite imagery data product and vector data products, including the following:
(i) monthly time series of NDII and NDVI imagery,
(ii) management period mean and difference NDII and NDVI imagery,
(iii) wetland boundaries for the years with available aerial imagery, and
(iv) subregion boundaries.