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Title: Mapping Wetlands along the Natchez Trace Parkway
Node:  Mobile County Health Department
Team:  Natchez Trace Ecological Forecasting and Water Resources Team
Term:  Fall 2015
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>> Ashley Gideon: The Natchez Trace Parkway is a 444-mile road and natural preserve managed by the National Park Service and spans across 
Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. It provides recreation and ecological services, including necessary habitats for hundreds of species 
of birds, fish, mammals, and plants. Our group, the Natchez Trace Eco Forecasting Team, collaborated with the NPS for this project. 

>> Deanna Boensch: My name is Deanna Boensch, and I'm the Natural Resource Specialist for the Natchez Trace Parkway. Wetlands are a vital 
ecosystem that enhance water quality and provide habitat to fish and wildlife, many of which are rare, threatened, or endangered due to 
habitat loss. When beavers start damming smaller streams, they will flood low-lying areas and convert it to a freshwater wetland. When 
beavers establish a dam within the National Park Service property, flooding can occur outside the boundary and become problematic for 
neighboring landowners. Within the park, damming can also affect the structural integrity of our roads and trails, causing a conflict 
between native wildlife and recreational activities. In many cases, when flooding cannot be allowed to persist, parkway staff will breach 
a beaver dam to allow water to flow. In many cases, the beaver get right back to work re-establishing the dam. 

>> Ashley Gideon: Our products provide historic, present, and future context on wetland extents throughout the parkway to help inform future 
management policies. Knowing how the wetland extents change, and where their future boundaries are likely to be, will help the National Park 
Service to identify areas especially vulnerable to beaver dams. Our results highlight regions which should be carefully managed for 
conservation and parkway quality. 

>> Jenna Rackley: To accomplish this, the years 1992, 2002, and 2015 were selected to show recent wetland extent changes. Landsat 5, 7, and 8 
data were collected and clipped to create a 25-kilometer buffer around the parkway to serve as our study area. After processing, all outputs 
were clipped to a 500-meter buffered region around the parkway boundary. We used the red, near-infrared, and shortwave infrared bands for 
leaf-on and leaf-off dates to create composite images in ArcMap. These were used to produce a land use/land cover classification using ERDAS 
Imagine for each date, highlighting wetland regions within our study area. The final product is a time series showing land cover changes over 
the past 23 years for the Natchez Trace Parkway. To project future changes, we used the TerrSet Land Change Modeler with our classified 
beginning and end dates. This program modeled the expected wetland extent changes along the parkway for the year 2020. The modeled product 
shows likely wetland boundaries within the next 5 years. 

>> Tyler Lynn: Specific regions of particular interest to the National Park Service were selected based on the proximity of beaver dams and 
their history of flooding and damage. These regions were highlighted within the study area to display historic wetland shifts and modeled 
future changes. This project produced several maps showing a time series of wetland extent changes from 1992 to 2015, as well as a map 
showing projected wetland changes by the year 2020. The National Park Service will be able to use these products to aid in future conservation 
and management planning for the Natchez Trace Parkway. 

>> Deanna Boensch: The NASA Earth Observations will help park managers get a better understanding of the landscape changes over time after 
several decades of beaver management. The parkway is in need of a beaver management plan, and this study will help get a baseline of current 
conditions and understand the effects of past management. Another benefit to this project is looking beyond the boundary at surrounding lands 
and seeing how changes in land use may or may not have affected beaver presence and also predicting impacts in future years.