The Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve Vegetation Mapping Project: Geodatabase–Southeast Saline Everglades (Region 2), Everglades National Park

The Everglades National Park (EVER) and Big Cypress National Preserve (BICY) vegetation mapping project is part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). It is a cooperative effort between the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and the National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Mapping Inventory Program (VMI). The goal of this project is to produce a spatially and thematically accurate vegetation map of EVER and BICY prior to the completion of restoration efforts. The vegetation map will serve as a record of baseline conditions to: (1) document changes to the spatial extent, pattern, and proportion of plant communities within these two federally managed units as they respond to hydrologic modifications resulting from the implementation of CERP; and (2) provide vegetation and land-cover information to NPS park managers and scientists for use in park management, resource management, research, and monitoring.

This project covers an area of approximately 7,400 square kilometers (1.84 million acres [ac]) and consists of seven mapping regions: four regions in EVER, Regions 1–4; and three in BICY, Regions 5–7 (Figure 1). The report that follows focuses on the mapping effort associated with Region 2, the Southeast Saline Everglades (SESE); an area that is geographically centered on southern Taylor Slough in Everglades NP. Region 2 encompasses a total area of 591.4 square kilometers (228.2 square miles [mi2] and 146,138 ac) and is bounded by Shark River Slough/Long Pine Key (Region 1) to the north, U.S Highway 1 to the east, Florida Bay to the south, and Flamingo (Region 3) to the west.

Photo-interpretation was performed by superimposing a 50 × 50 meter (164 × 164 feet [ft] or .25 hectare [.61 ac]) grid cell vector matrix over stereoscopic, 0.30 centimeter (11.8 inches [in]) spatial resolution, color-infrared aerial imagery on a digital photogrammetric workstation. Photo-interpreters identified the dominant community in each cell by applying majority rule algorithms, recognizing community specific spectral signatures alongside an aerial photograph interpretation key, and referencing an extensive ground-truth database. The dominant vegetation community within in each grid cell was classified using a hierarchical classification system developed specifically for this project. In addition, at each grid cell photo-interpreters noted any evidence of disturbance as either anthropogenic, fire, freeze, or windstorm and categorized the absolute cover of cattail (Typha sp.) and any exotic species present as either: Sparse (10–49%), Dominant (50–89%), or Monotypic (90–100%).

A total of 129 unique vegetation classes were identified within Region 2. The most common vegetation type was Red Mangrove Scrub-Open Marsh. This community accounted for approximately 17.3% of the map area. Other notable classes include Short Sawgrass Marsh-Dense (8.6%), Transitional Bayhead Shrubland (7.2%), Red Mangrove Scrub-Sawgrass Marsh (5.4%), Red Mangrove Scrub-Spikerush Marsh (4.6%), Spikerush Marsh (3.5%), and Transitional Bayhead Swamp Scrub-Sawgrass Marsh (2.5%). These seven classes and water (23.0%) account for 72.2% of the entire area mapped within Region 2. Based on 229 randomly selected points, the Region 2 map accuracy was determined to be 88.6% with a lower 90th percentile confidence level of 84.6%.

Tags: buttonwood, community, cypress, habitat, mangrove, map, sawgrass, vegetation, vegetation-mapping-inventory
Organization: Department of the Interior