Probability of Habitat Suitability for Piping Plovers (Charadrius melodus) and Associated Landscape Characteristics for Cape Lookout National Seashore, North Carolina

To better understand storm-driven habitat creation and loss, piping plover (Charadrius melodus[BW2.1]) habitat availability was mapped along the Cape Lookout National Seashore, North Carolina (abbreviated in this release as CaLo) for multiple years (2014–2022). To derive the habitat suitability maps, machine learning image classification and other remote sensing tools were used, along with manual digitization techniques, to produce Geographic Tagged Image File Format (GeoTIFF, .tif) raster datasets with a 5x5 meter (m) resolution. These raster files contain landcover, geomorphic setting, substrate type, vegetation type, vegetation density, distance from every raster cell to the ocean shoreline, access from every raster cell to low-energy foraging areas (for example, inlet shorelines), and elevation based on publicly available orthoimagery and digital elevation models (DEMs) for each study year. These GeoTIFF raster datasets were used as inputs into a previously developed Bayesian network of piping plover habitat suitability in Norsys Software Corp.'s Netica™ program (version 6.05) to produce a raster coverage of the probability of nesting piping plover habitat suitability. This process was repeated for raster datasets derived from imagery and DEMs captured in each individual year. Raster datasets contained in this data release can be viewed as an individual landscape variable or as a probability of habitat suitability, depending on the attribute table column selected for display. For more information on the data processing methods used, see Zeigler and others (2026, 2019).
Zeigler, S.L., Sturdivant, E.J., and Gutierrez, B.T., 2019, Evaluating barrier island characteristics and piping plover (Charadrius melodus) habitat availability along the U.S. Atlantic coast—Geospatial approaches and methodology (ver. 1.1, October 2019): U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2019–1071, 34 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20191071.

Zeigler, S.L., Evans, A.D., Weber, K.M., Bosse, S.T., Sherwood, C.R., Over, J.S.R., Stephenson, C., and Altman, J., 2026, Dynamic availability of early successional piping plover nesting habitat at Cape Lookout National Seashore, North Carolina, USA: Journal of Coastal Conservation, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11852-026-01245-y.